
Pass -Dr ^ Zl 






L 



THE DISCOVERIES IN CRETE 




PLATE I 



Vases from Hagia Triada 
Scale— A I : 3, B i : 2. 



THE DISCOVERIES IN 

CRETE 

AND THEIR BEARING ON 

THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT 

CIVILISATION 



By RONALD M. BURROWS 

PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CARDIFF 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

1907 









PRINTED BY 

HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD. 

LONDON AND AYLESBURY, 

ENGLAND. 



tit 



PREFACE 

The present book is an attempt to meet a need 
that has been widely felt during the last few 
years, not only by classical scholars, but by the 
general cultured public. Mr. Arthur Evans's 
discoveries at Knossos made an impression on 
the popular imagination when they were first 
presented to the world six years ago, and the 
impression was deepened by the wonderful ex- 
hibition of Cretan art at Burlington House two 
years later. Even at that time, however, the 
accounts of the excavations that were accessible 
to the public were as fragmentary as they were 
fascinating. Since then the mass of new material 
has been so great that it has taken Mr. Evans 
all his time to publish the details as they came 
out in the various learned Journals which had 
a right to expect them. The promptness with 
which the result of each year's work has appeared 
is remarkable, and it has been out of the question 
to expect from Mr. Evans a general survey of 
the ground until the completion of the excava- 
tions. These have now been going on for six 
years, at Knossos and on other Cretan sites, and 
are not nearly completed. It may still be years 



vi PREFACE 

before we see, what we all look forward to, the 
great and final book on Knossos. 

Meanwhile learned monographs on different 
sections of the subject have been fast accumu- 
lating. They form the principal contents of six 
successive A nnuals of the B?itish School at Athens, 
and a not inconsiderable portion of the six cor- 
responding volumes of The Journal of Hellenic 
Studies. There is hardly a specialist journal in 
the world that has not contributed something to 
the solution of the problems involved, and many 
of them are not easily accessible. Those of Italy, 
in particular, whose contributions to the subject 
are of next importance to our own, are unde- 
servedly difficult of access in this country. 

It is not only, too, that the literature of the 
subject is extensive : the literature of any subject 
is, if you go deep enough. The commendable 
promptness of the yearly reports has brought 
with it one inevitable corollary. Each of them 
largely, and often tacitly, corrects and modifies 
those that precede it. The Eastern Court of one 
year becomes the Central Court of the next ; the 
Quadruple Staircase of one illustration loses the 
point of its adjective when the remains of a fifth 
flight are discovered ; the Middle Minoan of one 
stage in Mr. Evans's searchings after truth is sub- 
divided into three, or has its edges, perhaps, shaded 
off into Early Minoan III., or Late Minoan I. 
We have another Labyrinth, with many windings 



PREFACE vii 

and pitfalls. The bewildering quickness, indeed, 
with i which everything moves is itself a tribute to 
the brilliance and fertility of Mr. Evans's ideas. 
He leads, and the other distinguished archaeologists 
who are at work in the same field follow, and 
follow at a distance. The world outside cannot 
follow at all, and urgently clamours for help. 

It is this help that the present book attempts 
to give, and the moment of its appearance, 
during a partial lull of excavation, is an opportune 
one. There is a chance to take breath and 
gather up the threads, with the possibility that 
the next month's spade-work will not put us out 
of date. It is written, as far as possible, in 
untechnical language, and does not expect its 
readers to know by instinct what is meant by a 
" Schnabelkanne," or a "Vase a etrier." It aims 
at giving a picture of Cretan civilisation as a 
whole, and at presenting it in a manner that 
will make it alive and real. References, however, 
to the original publications have been given 
throughout, and it is hoped that the book may 
thus serve, not only as a general introduction 
to the subject, but also as a bibliographical 
guide to students who wish to pursue it 
seriously. Its main object is to give a clear 
and comprehensive account of where we stand, 
rather than to embody the writer's original 
research ; but the criticism of Minoan Chronology 
(pp. 44-6, 50-1, 66-83, 93-7), the argument as to 



viii PREFACE 

the Four Labyrinths (pp. 109-26), and some of 
the lines of inquiry opened up in the last four 
chapters, embody suggestions that are, I think, to 
some extent new. 

The criticism that there might with advantage 
be more illustrations is an obvious one. That 
the book should be cheap, however, was more 
important than that it should be illustrated ; and 
a desirable result will be attained if readers 
insist on their nearest public library taking in 
The Annual of the British School at Athens 
and The Journal of Hellenic Studies, in 
which admirable reproductions have appeared of 
three-fourths of what is here described. The 
illustrations that are here given are at least 
characteristic and useful. The Strata Section 
gives some idea of Mr. Evans's method of classi- 
fication, and the Cupbearer, on the cover, of the 
level of excellence reached by the art that he 
has made known to us. The Sketch Map of 
Crete is probably a better one for the purpose 
than any published elsewhere, and owing to the 
kindness of Mr. Evans and the Committee of 
the British School at Athens it has been possible 
to make the Plan of the Palace of Knossos an 
advance on any that has yet appeared. It is 
hoped that this plan will be of use to students 
as well as to those who visit the spot. The last 
that Mr. Evans published was in 1902, and even 
the specialist finds some difficulty in fitting into 



PREFACE ix 

their proper places and relative distances the 
important discoveries of the three succeeding years 
of excavation. These it has been possible to 
show by a system of arrow-heads and approximate 
distances, while the marking on the plan by a 
series of numbers of the principal parts of the 
Palace mentioned in the text makes their identi- 
fication easier than it is in the original publications. 
Mr. A. H. Hallam Murray has given me the 
benefit of his great skill in draughtsmanship in 
the preparation of the plan. The two interesting 
vases from Hagia Triada, which I am enabled to 
reproduce by the great kindness of Professor 
Halbherr, have never yet been published in 
England. 

My obligations are great and numerous. They 
are first and foremost to Mr. Evans himself, for 
unfailing help and kindness at every stage of my 
work. After him I owe most to his first lieutenant 
at Knossos, Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, and to Pro- 
fessor R. C. Bosanquet, late Director of the British 
School at Athens. To these three archaeologists, 
and indeed to all of those who, whether as prin- 
cipals or assistants, have conducted the excavations 
in Crete, I wish to offer a sincere expression of 
respect and admiration. Crete has been fortunate 
in its excavators, to whatever nationality they 
have belonged. If, in what will be acknowledged 
to be relatively a small number of cases, I have 
ventured to put forward opinions that they 



x PREFACE 

apparently do not share, I can assure them that I 
do so with diffidence, and with the consciousness 
that it is to their ungrudging labours and their 
scientific spirit that I or any one else owes the 
opportunity of forming an opinion at all. 

Further obligations in regard to particular sides 
of the subject will be acknowledged in the foot- 
notes. My friend Professor R. S. Conway has 
allowed me to incorporate as an Appendix an im- 
portant philological note on my suggestions as to 
the possible derivation of the word Labyrinth. On 
Egyptian matters I have received valuable assist- 
ance from Professor von Bissing, of Munich, 
and Mr. H. R. Hall, of the British Museum ; 
Mr. L. W. King, of the British Museum, has 
also been kind enough to allow me to make 
use of an unpublished discovery of his in regard 
to the early history of Mesopotamia. It would 
be ungracious to mention the British Museum 
without adding an expression of gratitude to 
Mr. Cecil Smith, and all the officials of the 
Greeco-Roman Department, whose courtesy and 
patience makes the work of research so much 
easier for many of us. I must also thank the 
Editor of The Church Quarterly for allowing me 
to make use of material that I published in it a 
year ago ; at one time it seemed as if it would 
bulk more largely in the present book than it 
has in point of fact. My former pupil, Miss 
G. E. Holding, Classical Mistress of the North 



PREFACE xi 

London Collegiate School, and my present 
pupil, Mr. J. H. Sanders, Exhibitioner of Balliol 
College, Oxford, have also been of great help 
to me in verifying references and correcting 
proofs. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that neither 
Mr. Evans nor any other of those who have 
helped me must be held responsible for any views 
here expressed, unless they are directly attributed 
to them. In such cases I trust that they will 
be found to be correctly stated. 

RONALD M. BURROWS. 

Cardiff, April 1907. 



CONTENTS 

PAGES 

PREFACE V-xi 

CHAPTER I 

THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS AND THE SEA POWER OF 

MINOS 1-23 

The Throne Room and the Cupbearer — The First Season's 
Discoveries — The Plan of the Palace — Staircases and Upper 
Stories — Engineering and Drainage — The Absence of Fortifica- 
tions — The Place Name "Minoa " — The Imperial Weights and 
Coinage — The Sack of the Palace — The Artistic Standard of the v 
Remains — Frescoes and Plaster Work — Porcelain and Ivory — 
The Bull Ring — Candia and Knossos — Mr. Evans as an 
Excavator. 

CHAPTER II 

THE PALACES OF PH^STOS AND HAGIA TRIADA, AND 

THE EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE . 24-39 

Extent of Excavation in Crete — The Cave of Zeus in 
Dicte — The Purple of Leuke — The Gems of Zakro — The 
Cities of Gournia and Palaikastro — The Palace of Phaestos — 
The Ossuary and the Royal Villa of Hagia Triada — The Cat 
Fresco — The Cult Scenes on the Sarcophagus — The Boxer Vase 
— Boxers in Italo-Illyrian and Etruscan Art — The Harvester 
Vase — The Chieftain Vase. 



CHAPTER III 

THE BEGINNINGS OF MINOAN CIVILISATION . 40-54 

Justification of the term "Minoan " — The Neolithic Age — 
The Value of Egyptian Synchronism — Early Minoan I. — The 
Continuity of Minoan Art — Early Minoan II. — The date of 
Early Minoan III. — The beginnings of Spirals and Polychromy 
— The Naturalism of Middle Minoan I. 

xiii 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 

PAGES 

THE BUILDING OF THE PALACES, AND THE GREAT 

MIDDLE MINOAN PERIODS . . . 55~65 

Character of the Buildings at Knossos before Middle Minoan 
II. — The West Court at Phasstos built in Middle Minoan 
II. — The West Wing at Knossos built in Middle Minoan 
III. — The Great Polychrome Period of Middle Minoan II. — 
The Naturalism of Middle Minoan III. — Writing with Ink and 
Pen. 

CHAPTER V 

EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY AND THE DATE OF THE 

MIDDLE MINOAN PERIODS . . . 66-83 

Middle Minoan II. and the Xllth Dynasty — The Berlin 
Astronomy — The Great Gap in Egyptian History — The 
Continuity of Egyptian Art — The Date of the Hagios 
Onuphrios Seals — Points of Contact between Minoan and 
Egyptian Art — Dr. Dorpfeld and the Phcestos Propylaea — The 
Continuity of Minoan Architecture — Two Thousand Years, or 
Six Hundred ? 

CHAPTER VI 

THE PALACE STYLE AND THE SACK OF KNOSSOS ^4~97 

Late Minoan I. — The Architectural Style of Late Minoan 
II. — Crete and the Mycenaean Mainland — Rapiers — False- 
necked Vases — Strainers — The Date of Late Minoan I. 
and II. — The Keftiu on the Tomb of Rekhmara — The Date 
of the Sack of Knossos. 

CHAPTER VII 

THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE . . . 98-I06 

Late Minoan III. and Decadence — The Age of Transition — 
Bronze and Iron — Burial and Cremation — Dr. Waldstein's 
Seventh-Century Theory — The Soundness of Mr. Evans's 
Method. 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR . . IO7-I32 

The Four Labyrinths — The Double Axe as Masons' 
Mark — The Religious Aspect of the Double Axe — Survivals 
of Minoan Religion — Labyrinth, Laura, and Laurium — 
The Termination in -nth — The Egyptian Labyrinth — Hawara, 
Gurob, and the Tursha — Minoans and Etruscans — The 
Minotaur and Minoan Religion — The Minotaur and the 
Bull Ring — The Palace of Knossos the Labyrinth. 



CONTENTS xv 



CHAPTER IX 

PAGES 

CRETE AND THE EAST 133-162 

Minoan and Semitic Religion — Minoan and Egyptian 
Religion — The Distinctive Element in Cretan Orientalism — 
Babylon and the Mediterranean — The Red Men of the 
/Egean — Carians and Phoenicians — The Coming of the 
Greeks — The Mediterranean Race — The Minoan Scripts — Was 
Minoan spoken at Mycenae ? — The Praesos Inscriptions — 
Eteo-Cretan and Minoan — Eteo-Cretan and the Termination 
in -nth — Minoan after the Sack of Knossos — The Meaning 
of the Sack of Knossos. 

CHAPTER X 

CRETE AND THE NORTH 163-183 

Can Physical Type be modified ? — Early Mixture of Race, 
shown by Skull Record and Types of Grave — The Round Hut 
—The Narrow Waist — Height — Types of Sword — The Leaf- 
shaped Sword at Knossos — Crete and the Mycenaean Mainland 
— The Dominance of Crete — Cretan and Mainland Palaces 
— The Leaf -shaped Sword at Mycenae. 

CHAPTER XI 

THE NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA AND 

CENTRAL EUROPE 184-202 

The Neolithic Spiral Area — The Art of Petreny — Theory 
of iEgean Origin — Theory of Indo-European Origin — 
Mediterranean Race Theory — Dorpfeld and the Achaeans — 
The Central Hearth at Troy — Mycenae and the North. 

CHAPTER XII 

CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS . . . 203-219 

Tribal Names premature — True Doric — The Shield of 
Achilles — The Palace of Alkinoos — Crete and Phaeacia — 
Cremation — The Homeric Problem — Iron and Bronze — Arete 
and Alkinoos — Evolution. 



APPENDIX A (to p. 70) 

THE EGYPTIAN YEAR 221-226 

Sothic Cycles — The Beginning of the Calendar — Double 
Dates — Latitude — Sothic and Julian Years. 



xvi CONTENTS 

APPENDIX B (to p. 117) 

PAGES 

THE SUGGESTED CONNECTION OF LABYRINTH, LAURA, 

LAURIUM 227-229 

By Professor R. S. Conway. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 23I-236 

INDEX 237-241 

ADDENDA 243, 244 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Cupbearer ....... Cover 

First published M.R. March 1901, fig. 6, p. 124. 

Plate I. A. Boxer Vase from Hagia Triada . Frontispiece 

First published Rend. xiv. 1905, pp. 365-405 fig. 1. 

„ B and C. Harvester Vase from Hagia Triada. 

First published Mon. Ant. xiii. 1903, Plates I.-III. 

Plate II. Sketch Map of Crete . . . Facing p. 24 

Plate III. Strata Section from Palace of Knossos Facing p. 56 
Based on B.S.A. ix. fig. 13, p. 26. 

Plate IV. Plan of the Palace of Knossos . . .At end 

Based on B.S.A. viii. Plate I. and on information 
contained in ibid. vi. Plate XIII., vii. Plate I., and in 
Figures and Text of ix., x., and xi. 



THE 

DISCOVERIES IN CRETE 

CHAPTER I 

THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS AND THE SEA POWER 

OF MINOS 

Since the famous telegram in which Schliemann informed 
the King of the Hellenes that he had discovered the tomb 
of Agamemnon, there has been nothing in archaeology 
that has made such a vivid impression on the popular 
imagination as Mr. Arthur Evans's excavations at Knossos. 
The Minotaur ! the Labyrinth ! — such words do not 
suggest the solemnities of antiquarian research. The 
average fairly equipped scholar knows that the French 
have explored Delos and Delphi ; but, unless he is 
working at archaeology, he does not know what they 
have found there. The work of the British School at 
Megalopolis and in Melos is familiar only to the more 
painstaking members of the Hellenic Society. Knossos 
alone appeals to no mere esoteric audience of specialists. 
It moves along the broad ways, and carries us back, 
behind our learning and education, to the glamour and 
romance of our first fairy stories. 

Nor is the impression solely due to the nature of the 
material ; it is largely due to Mr. Evans himself. It 
is not only that he has the gift of clear and attractive 
writing, or that he tries consciously to interest a wide 

I 



2 THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS 

public in work which must necessarily involve large 
expense. Mr. Evans naturally does not see things 
in a dry light. He has the dramatic instinct, and 
impresses it on all he touches. What could be more 
dramatic than the photograph which he printed as the 
frontispiece of the first report of the Cretan Exploration 
Fund ? The excavation of the Throne Room is in 
process ; in the foreground four peasants are bending 
at their work ; at the back are the plank ways and the 
baskets of dug-out earth, and all the apparatus of ex- 
ploration ; and there, in the centre of the picture, with 
its carved back scarcely three feet below the surface of 
the soil, is the throne of the ancient king, with the lines 
of its strange crocketing fresh and unchipped, unmoved 
from the day when first it was packed away in the earth 
three-and- thirty centuries ago. 

Take, again, one of Mr. Evans's own descriptions in 
that first fascinating article in which he gave his results 
to the world. He had just discovered the fresco of the 
" Cupbearer." 1 

" The colours were almost as brilliant as when laid 
down over three thousand years before. For the first 
time the true portraiture of a man of this mysterious 
Mycenaean race rises before us. There was something 
very impressive in this vision of brilliant youth and of 
male beauty, recalled after so long an interval to our 
upper air from what had been till yesterday a forgotten 
world. Even our untutored Cretan workmen felt the 
spell and fascination. 

" They, indeed, regarded the discovery of such a 
painting in the bosom of the earth as nothing less than 
miraculous, and saw in it the ' icon ' of a saint ! The 
removal of the fresco required a delicate and laborious 
process of under-plastering, which necessitated its being 
watched at night ; and old Manolis, one of the most 

1 M.R. March 1901, fig. 6, p. 124. It is reproduced on the 
cover of the present book. 



THE THRONE ROOM AND THE CUPBEARER 3 

trustworthy of our gang, was told off for the purpose. 
Somehow or other he fell asleep, but the wrathful saint 
appeared to him in a dream. Waking with a start he 
was conscious of a mysterious presence ; the animals 
round began to low and neigh, and there were visions 
about ; ' tjuarrdfiet,' he said, in summing up his experiences 
next morning, ' The whole place spooks ! '■' " 

The finds of that first season's work were indeed 
marvellous. Besides the Throne ! and the Cupbearer, 
there were the long corridors with their rows and rows 
of huge Aladdin's jars, 2 twenty in a single store-room, 
many of them still standing in position and intact, as 
whdn once they held the oil or wine of King Minos. 
On the walls were frescoes of ■■* his minions and his 
dames," in garden or in balcony " viewing the games " ; 
the men close-shaven and with flowing hair, the women 
with puffed sleeves and flounced skirts, frisees et decol- 
letees, altogether ladies of fashion and the Court, of 
whom the French savant might well exclaim, " Mais ce 
sont des Parisiennes ! " 3 

In contrast to these miniatures, in which the men's 
figures are sketched in thin dark lines on rough patches 
of reddish brown for flesh, the women's figures on a 
similar ground of white, there were wall paintings on a 
larger scale. There were men bearing vases in procession, 
tribute perhaps to Minos from the islands of the ZEgean, 
just as we see Crete itself bringing tribute to Egypt 
on the walls of the XVIIIth Dynasty tombs of Senmut 
and Rekhmara ; * and, in another mood, there had been 
painted by an earlier artist a nature scene of singular 
delicacy — a boy picking the white crocuses, with which 

1 M.R. March 1901, fig. 5, p. 123 ; B.S.A. vi. fig. 8, p. 37. 

2 M.R. March 1901, fig. 2, p. 118, fig. 3, p. 120; B.S.A. vi. 
figs. 4 and 5, pp. 22, 23. 

3 B.S.A. vi. pp. 46-8 ; M.R. March 1901, p. 125 ; J.H.S. xxi 
Plate V. gives part of the design. 

4 B.S.A. vi. p. 13. See below, p. 93. 



4 THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS 

the Cretan meadows are still bright in spring, and placing 
them in a vase. 1 

All this was found during the early months of 1900. 
Above all, the great hoard of clay tablets in the unknown 
script 2 gave a sensational promise of revelations to come. 
For beauty and picturesqueness and sheer thrill these 
discoveries remain unmatched by those of any subse- 
quent year. None the less, no one, not even Mr. Evans 
himself, ever expected that so much was to follow. In 
the fir's t report he talked of the work as " barely half 
completed " ; but, in fact, it has gone on for five more 
years, and there is still much to be done. Only in the 
last year of excavation the paved way leading from 
the Theatral Area has been found to connect the Palace 
with a " Little Palace " farther west, whose fine gypsum 
walling runs at a considerable depth of earth straight 
into the hillside opposite. 3 The excavation of this im- 
portant building has only just been begun, and may lead 
to far-reaching results when Mr. Evans returns to it in 
future years ; while around it, facing towards the east, 
like the domestic quarters of the Palace, may well be 
the long-sought-for royal Tombs ; and above it traces 
of an early Doric Temple suggest to us the tenacity of 
religious tradition and the chance of lighting upon some 
central Minoan sanctuary. 

The great Palace itself, as now excavated, is a vast 
complex of chambers, courts, and corridors, bewildering 
to the lay mind as laid out in the plans prepared by 
Mr. Evans's architects, and hard to find one's way through 
even on the spot. 

The dominating feature in the situation is the great 
central court, a paved area 190 feet long by 90 feet 
wide, with corridors, halls, and chambers grouped around 
it, so that the whole forms a rough square that is about 

1 B.S.A. vi. p. 45. 

2 Ibid. pp. 17-9, 55-63, Plates I. and II. ; M.R. March 
1901, fig. 8, p. 128. 3 B.S.A. xi. pp. 2-16. 



THE PLAN OF THE PALACE 5 

400 feet ! each way. Mr. Evans believes that the Palace 
was definitely conceived as a symmetrical square, with 
four main avenues approaching it at right angles, and 
compares it to a Roman camp or the plan of Thurii as 
built by Hippocrates. 2 Owing to the many subsequent 
remodellings of the original plan, and the fact that 
the upper stories only partially remain, it is difficult 
to estimate how far we can press this suggestion. The 
rooms themselves, at any rate, are more remarkable for 
the irregularity of their grouping than for anything else, 
and seem to be a development on a large scale of the 
rambling many-roomed houses of the people that we 
find in contemporary Crete, as at Palaikastro. 3 

While the Central Court was the focus of the inner life 
of the Palace, there was another court on the west that 
formed the meeting-ground between palace and city. 
Due north of this again, at the extreme north-west 
corner of the Palace, is the Theatral Area, a paved space, 
about 40 feet by 30, backed on two sides by tiers 
of steps. These steps, which are adjacent, and at right 
angles to each other, cannot have ever led into a building. 
They must have supplied standing room for rows of 
spectators, and the area between them must have been 
meant for some kind of show or sport. The tiers them- 
selves, one of which is still eighteen steps high, a platform 
on which the most distinguished guests may have had 
seats, and a central bastion between the two tiers that 
may have acted as a royal box, could have between them 
accommodated from four to five hundred people. 4 

What went on before them we can only conjecture. 
For the favourite Minoan sport of bull-baiting there was 
no room. That boxing played almost as important a 

1 The Plan given in this book (Plate IV.) does not quite contain 
all this area. 

2 B.S.A. vii. pp. 99, 100 ; J.B.A. x. 1902, p. 105. 

3 E.g. House B. R. C. Bosanquet in B.S.A. viii. fig. 23, p. 310. 
See below, p. 181. * Ibid. ix. iig. 69, p. 105. 



6 THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS 

part in the Palace life we have evidence from the figures 
of boxers on the clay mould of a seal, 1 and the exciting 
prize fights carved on the steatite vase from Hagia 
Triada. 2 Nor can we shut out the possibility that 
ceremonial dancing may have formed part of the pro- 
gramme of this earliest type of theatre. " The twinkling 
of the dancers' feet " comes to us in the Odyssey as a 
memory from that palace of Alkinoos, whose wonders recall 
to us so much that we have found in Crete ; % while the 
Iliad tells us how the Fire-god worked upon the shield of 
Achilles a Choros, or dancing-ground, " such as once in 
broad Knossos Daedalus wrought for fair-haired Ariadne." 4 

From the theatre a paved way led west about 300 
yards to the " Little Palace " already mentioned. To 
the north it was half a mile to the cemetery of Zafer 
Papoura, which lies on the slopes of the protecting chain 
of hills that hide the low knoll of Knossos from the sea. 
It was these hills that made its first Stone Age citizens 
settle at Knossos, as the nearest point u'p the Kairatos 
river 5 that was safe from the eye of the wandering pirate. 

For Knossos was lived in from Stone Age days, and 
the hill itself, like the apex of the mound of Hissarlik, 
was largely composed of the remains of successive strata 
of early habitations. At Hissarlik, the builders of what 
is called the second city of Troy, which is roughly 
contemporary with what we shall later describe as the 
early Minoan periods, 6 laid their foundations direct upon 
the Neolithic mound ; but the sixth or " Homeric " city, 
that corresponds in date to the latest periods of the 
Knossian palace, needed a larger circuit for its walls, and 
was built altogether outside the original central cone. This 
is the reason why Dr. Schliemann never discovered these 
finer walls at all till within a few months before his death, 

1 B.S.A. ix. fig. 35, p. 56. See also below, p. 34. 

2 See p. 34 and Plate I. a. 3 Od. viii. 248-65. 

4 Iliad, xviii. 590-2. B The modern Katzabas, 

6 But see below, pp. 50, 300 



STAIRCASES AND UPPER STORIES 7 

but dug straight below the Roman foundations on the 
top of the cone, and assumed that the second city, which 
was the top pre-classical stratum that he found beneath 
them, was the Homeric Troy. 1 At Knossos, however, 
the cone of the Neolithic strata was planed away early 
in the history of the Palace, and the level plateau that 
was thus formed was large enough for the Central Court 
and the whole western wing. 

East of the Central Court, however, the ground sloped 
down towards the river, which may have run farther 
west and closer to the hill than now, so that it flanked 
the Palace on its eastern side and had its " water-gate." 2 
Here it was that those great unknown architects found 
scope for their skill in engineering. A scheme of internal 
staircases and upper stories enabled the rooms built 
upon this eastern slope to communicate with the Central 
Court on the crown of the hill. 3 

Upper stories indeed were not confined to this part of 
the site. The explanation of the fact that mere store- 
rooms, like the Western Magazines, occupy the extensive 
and important area to the west of the Throne Room, is, 
without a doubt, that they were only the basements of 
splendid upper halls that commanded the Western Court. 4 
These upper walls seem mainly to have been formed, not 
of sun- or fire-baked mud bricks, as at Gournia or Palai- 
kastro, 5 but of clay or rubble, coated with plaster or faced 
with gypsum slabs. There are indeed masses of red 
calcined earth at certain points, which must be the 
remains of brickwork, but bricks do not seem to have 
been found intact, whereas in Eastern Crete they have 
survived in large numbers undamaged, and seem to have 

1 Sec Bosanquct's summary in B.S.A . i. pp. 101-9, and Dorpfeld, 
T.I. vol. ii. Plate III. 2 J.B.A. x. 1902, pp. 102, 105. 

3 Sec an excellent view, looking due west, in ibid. p. 97. 

4 Ibid. p. 99. 

5 Bosanquct in B.S.A. viii. p. 315, etc. ; Miss Boyd in A.S.I. 
1904, pp. 561-70. 



8 THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS 

been almost as durable as stone. The conflagration of 
the Palace cannot altogether account for the difference, 
and it is probable that the invariable practice of plaster 
or gypsum facing meant that brickwork, even where it 
was used at Knossos, was not made so carefully as for 
city houses. 1 To the fact, however, that at Knossos the 
upper walls were hot durable, but fell in and rilled up 
the ground-floor level, we owe not a little that the wall 
decoration of the ground floor has been so well preserved ; 
while on the eastern slope, where the stories were piled 
up highest, the superstructure happened in some cases to 
fall in such a way that it actually propped up the stone 
staircases and upper flooring, and kept them in position. 
Thus it is that in what Mr. Evans calls the domestic 
quarter of the Palace, by the Queen's Megaron and the 
Court of the Distaffs, it has been possible to replace the 
rubble and brickwork debris by pillars and girders, and 
keep the upper flooring still in position. We can sit 
on the Stone Bench in the room that bears its name, 
immediately above where we had stood a minute before 
in the Room of the Plaster Couch. 2 Here too a great 
staircase, five flights high, led from the Hall of the 
Colonnades up to the Central Court, and of its fifty- 
two massive stone steps thirty-eight are still preserved. 
With a height of ^\ and a depth of 18 inches, these steps 
allowed an easy and ample tread, while their width from 
wall to wall was, in the lower flights, as much as 6 feet. 3 
Advantage was taken, too, of the steep gradient to 
develop an elaborate drainage system in the private 
living rooms that lay on this eastern slope, with an 

1 In J.B.A. x. 1902, p. 133, Hogarth argues that no bricks 
at all were used at Knossos. This, however, must be modified 
in the light of Evans's statements in B.S.A. vii. p. 1 10, xi. p. 23. 

2 B.S.A. viii. figs. 29, 30, 44, pp. 56, 57, 79. 

3 The Quadruple Staircase of B.S.A. vii. figs. 32, 33, 36, 
pp. 106, in, 116, viii. figs. 1, 23, pp. 2, 47, xi. fig. 12, p. 24. 
For the traces of the Fifth Flight, see ibid. xi. pp. 25, 26. For 
the measurements, see ibid. vii. p. 104. 



ENGINEERING AND DRAINAGE 9 

arrangement of lavatories, sinks, and manholes that is 
staggeringly modern and " all* Inglese," as Dr. Halbherr 
gracefully calls it. 1 The main drain, which had its sides 
coated with cement, was over 3 feet high, and nearly 
2 feet broad, so that a man could easily move along it ; 
and the smaller stone shafts that discharged into it are 
still in position. 8 Farther north we have preserved to 
us some of the terracotta pipes that served for connections. 
Each of them was about 2 J feet long, with a diameter 
that was about 6 inches at the broad end, and narrowed 
to less than 4 inches at the mouth, where it fitted into 
the broad end of the next pipe. Jamming was carefully 
prevented by a stop-ridge that ran round the outside 
of each narrow end a few inches from the mouth, while 
the inside of the butt, or broader end, was provided 
with a raised collar that enabled it to bear the pressure 
of the next pipe's stop-ridge, and gave an extra hold for 
the cement that bound the two pipes together. 3 

Still lower down the slope, on a staircase by the Eastern 
Bastion, 4 there is an elaborate piece of hydraulic science 
for checking the flow of water. A stone runnel is made 
to descend the stairs in a series of parabolic curves which 
would subject the water to friction, and thus reduce its 
velocity and the consequent danger of a flood on the 
pavement below. 

The idea of drainage was not new to the world. Terra- 
cotta pipes, though not so scientifically constructed, were 
found by Hilprecht in what he terms the pre-Sargonic 
stratum at Nippur in Mesopotamia ; the larger ones, 
2 1 feet in diameter, serving as vertical shafts, the smaller, 
from 6 to 8 inches in diameter, lying horizontally. 5 
Apart from this, however, we can find no parallel for 
the drainage and sanitation of Knossos in classical or 

1 M.I.L. xxi. 5, 1905, p. 244. 

2 B.S.A. viii. figs. 46-8, pp. 81-5. 

3 Ibid. fig. 7, p. 13. 4 Ibid. p. 111. 
5 E.B.L. p. 401. 



io THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS 

mediaeval days, but have to take the leap direct into 
our own times. 

The detached building that Mr. Evans calls the Royal 
Villa, lying about 130 yards due east of the northern 
entrance, carries us almost as far ahead in history, though 
by a more gradual process. It was long ago suggested 
that the Roman Basilica, which formed the earliest type 
of Christian church, was derived both in structure and 
in name from the " Stoa Basilike " or King's Colonnade 
at Athens. This was the place where the King Archon, 
the particular member of the board of nine annual 
magistrates who inherited the sacred and judicial 
functions of the old kings, tried cases of impiety. 
It had further seemed possible that the building as well 
as the title was a survival from some earlier stage, when 
a king was a king in more than name. 1 What we have 
found at Knossos seems curiously to confirm this sug- 
gested chain of inheritance. 

At one end of a pillared hall, about 37 feet long 
by 15 wide, there is a narrow raised dais, separated 
from the rest of the hall by stone balustrades, with an 
opening between them in which three steps give access to 
the centre of the dais. At this centre point, immediately 
in front of the steps, a square niche is set back in the wall, 
and in this niche are the remains of a gypsum throne. 
The throne is broken beyond repairing, but on the second 
step a tall lamp of lilac gypsum still stands intact in 
position. We seem to have here, as Mr. Evans suggests, a 
pillar hall with a raised " Tribunal " or dais bounded by 
" Cancelli " or balustrades, and with an " Exedra " or 
seated central niche which was the place of honour. 
Even the elements of a triple longitudinal division are 
indicated by the two rows of columns that run down the 
Hall. Is the Priest-King of Knossos, 2 who here gave his 
judgments, a direct ancestor of Praetor and Bishop 

1 See Frazer, Pausanias, vol. ii. p. 58, for a reserved statement 
of these views, 2 B-S.A. ix. p. 38, 



THE ABSENCE OF FORTIFICATIONS u 

seated in the Apse within the Chancel, speaking to the 
people that stood below in Nave and Aisles ? 1 

In all this description one point must have struck the 
reader : not a word has been said about fortifications. 
This peculiarity — for indeed there neither are nor were 
any fortifications to describe — may seem strange at first 
sight to those who are familiar with the mighty walls of 
Tiryns and of Mycenae. Not only were those cities 
fortified, but their architects based their whole system 
on the strategical possibilities of the site, and closely 
followed its defensible contours. 2 The architects of 
Knossos were untrammelled by any such considerations, 
and saw in a rise of ground nothing but a good excuse 
for the piling up of stately buildings. 

The reason for the difference is not far to seek. Paris is 
fortified, London is not. Nor does the analogy of London 
stop with the fact that it is on an island. The Empire 
of Knossos rested on Sea Power, on the ships that were 
beached a few miles away in the broad shallow harbour 
on which issued the Kairatos. 

Of all the traditions that gather round Minoan Crete, 
none is more persistent than that which represents its 
greatness as depending on a Thalassocracy. It is not 
merely the general statements by Herodotus 3 and 
Thucydides 4 that Minos was master of the islands, or 
the legend of the human tribute that Athens sent for the 
Minotaur in the days of Theseus and Ariadne. 5 Through- 
out the ^Egean we see traces of the Minoan Empire in 
one of the most permanent of all traditions, the survival 
of a place name ; the word Minoa, wherever it occurs, 
must mark a fortress or trading station of the great king, 6 
as surely as the Alexandrias or Antiochs or Csesareas of 

1 B.S.A. ix. fig. 89, p. 145, and Plate I. 

2 J.B.A. x. 1902, p. 104. 3 iii. 122. 

4 i. 4 and 8. 5 Plutarch, Theseus. 

6 Does Farnell (C.G.S. iv. 46) seriously connect the Minyae 
with Minos ? 



12 THE SEA POWER OF MINOS 

later days. The list of such Minoas, as collected by 
Professor Fick of Gottingen in his book of pre-Hellenic 
place names, 1 is truly a formidable one. The two of 
them that we find in Crete 2 are the least convincing 
examples of any, as they might be later foundations that 
chose an obviously appropriate name. This would not 
apply to the Minoas in the islands of Siphnos and Amorgos, 
nor to Minoa as the old name for Paros, 3 nor to the island 
off Megara. This Minoa kept its old name to the end, 
and was assuredly the Cretan base of operations for the 
control of Central Greece, as it was later for the Athenians, 
in their attack on Megara in the Peloponnesian War. 4 

The tradition, too, that gives the name Minoa to 
Gaza on the coast of Palestine, and finds it even in 
Arabia, 5 is not in itself improbable, now we know the 
close relations that existed between Crete and the South 
and East. Further excavation in North Palestine may 
confirm Mr. Evans's conjecture that the bronze horned 
sword and painted pottery just found in the cemetery 
at Gaza points, not only to such intercourse, but to 
an actual settlement from Crete in the transitional 
Early Iron Age. 6 The Philistine giants who fought 
against the Children of Israel 7 might be thought of as 
cousins to the Boxers on the Hagia Triada vase, were 
we warranted in believing that they were really as 
long-limbed as they look. 8 

A similar body of evidence, derived both from tradition 
and from excavation, connects Minos with the West and 
Sicily. It has been hitherto assumed that the name 
Minoa, which belonged to the town that was afterwards 

1 V.O. 1905, p. 27. 

2 Strabo, p. 475 ; Ptolemy, iii. 17, 5 and 7. 

3 Steph. Byz. ad voc. p. 454, Meineke. 

* Thuc. iii. 51, iv. 67. 5 Steph. Byz. ad voc. 

s P.T. p. 107 ; B.S.A. ix. p. 89. Cp. J.H.S. xiv. pp. 368-72, 
xxi. p. 131. 

7 1 Chron. xx. ; 2 Sam. xxi. But see Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. 1901, 
pp. 618-20, s Plate I. a. See pp. 173-4 



MINOA AND MINOS 13 

called Heraclea, 1 was given to it, not from any original 
settlement from Crete, but because the Dorians of the 
neighbouring Selinus brought the name with them from 
their mother country Megara. Be this as it may, the 
Minoan swords and pottery found by Dr. Orsi in Sicilian 
tombs, and the resemblance between the cult of Aphrodite 
of Eryx and that of the Dove Goddess at Knossos, point 
to an early and close connection. 2 There may be some- 
thing after all in the story that comes to us in Herodotus * 
and Diodorus/ of that first great " Sicilian Expedition " 
on which Minos went in search of his artist Daedalus, and 
found in it his ruin, as did his brother Thalassocrats of 
Athens after him. 

We may push the analogy further, and see in a Minoa 
in Corcyra 8 a proof that Minos, as well as Athens, found 
that Mand useful for the coasting voyage to Sicily. There 
was a Minoa, too, in South Laconia, the steep detached 
Gibraltar Rock of Monemvasia, 6 from which Villehardouin 
and the Venetians shipped " Malmsey " or " Malvoisie " 
wine to Western Europe. As one approaches it on the 
coasting steamer from Pylos, the resemblance between 
the two places is impressive. This was surely one of the 
" deserted headlands " that Eurymedon was thinking of 
when he sneered at Demosthenes' s plan of fortifying 
Pylos. 7 There were no discontented Helots in Minos's day 
to turn the scale for Pylos. How far the Empire of Crete 
began, like that of Athens, as an " iEgean League," 8 for 

1 Hdt. v. 46. 

2 P.T. p. 109; B.S.A. ix. pp. 87, 89, 93. This does not 
commit us to the view that Minoan influence accounts for all 
the resemblances between the culture of the /Egean and that 
of Dr. Orsi's " Sikels." It is not yet clear how much is due to 
the parallel development of a kindred civilisation. See below, 
Chap. XI. 3 vii. 170. 4 iv. 76-9. 

6 C. & B. iii. 1, 1899, No. 3196 ; Thuc. i. 44. 
6 Paus. iii. 23, 11 ; Frazer, iii. p. 389. 7 Thuc. iv. 3. 

8 As suggested by D. Mackenzie in Phylakopi, pp. 262-3, 
271-2. See below, pp. 63, 85, 149, 179. 



14 THE SEA POWER OF MINOS 

mutual protection and advantage, we cannot tell. It is 
possible that Melos, whose free development of local art, 
side by side with that of Crete, seems to Dr. Mackenzie 
to imply some amount of autonomy, was in a specially 
intimate and favoured position. That there was a dark 
and oppressive side to the Empire is shown without a 
doubt by the story of the Minotaur and its human tribute. 

We see the impression that the perils of these unknown 
seas made on Minoan art in a clay seal impression that 
comes from Knossos. A sea monster, with head and 
jaws like a dog's, is rising from the waves and attacking 
a boatman who stands defending himself in his skiff. 1 
In an hitherto unintelligible wall painting from the 
Palace of Mycenae we can now see a similar monster, 
with a huge eye, opening its red jaws against the high 
curved beak of a ship. 2 Something like the Scylla of the 
Odyssey 3 is thus carried back to early times, and may 
already, as Mr. Evans suggests, have been localised in the 
Straits of Messina, opposite the Charybdis whirlpool. 
This is the black side of the sense of " the magic and the 
mystery of the sea " that finds a lighter expression in the 
octopus and sea-shell designs of the vases, and the flying 
fish on porcelain and frescoes. 4 

A more important record of the Minoan navy is a 
seal impression, also from Knossos, in which a powerful 
horse is being carried on a one-masted ship, whose rowers 
sit beneath an awning. 5 We have here perhaps the first 
importation from Libya into Europe of the Thorough- 
bred Horse. 6 

The organisation of such an empire, and the commerce 

* B.S.A.ix. fig. 36, p. 58. 

2 F. Studniczka in Ath. Mitt. 1906, xxxi. fig. 2. 

3 xii. 85 et seq. Our monster is not many -headed. 

4 Bosanquet in J.H.S. xxiv. pp. 321, 322. See below, pp. 20, 84. 

5 B.S.A. xi. fig. 7, p. 13. For a good collection of representa- 
tions of iEgean ships in art, see R. Dussaud in R.E. Anih., 1906, 
figs. 51-4, pp. 127-9. 

6 Ridgeway, T.H. 1905. 



THE IMPERIAL WEIGHTS AND COINAGE 15 

that it brought with it, must have meant a complexity 
of exchange. Professor Ridgeway had already argued 
from certain gold rings and spirals found in the Shaft 
graves at Mycenae, that a regular standard of weights 
was in use in the ^Egean at the time, based on what is 
called the light Babylonian shekel of 130 grains. 1 Mr. 
Evans has now followed up this discovery in a brilliant 
paper 2 which shows that the Minoan age had not only 
an elaborate system of weights, but the first beginnings 
of a coinage. Of the weights the most remarkable is a 
splendid piece of purple gypsum, 3 weighing a light Baby- 
lonian talent, and decorated with the tentacles of an 
octopus, that served, like the type upon a coin, to render 
it difficult without detection to tamper with the weight. 
Ox-heads of bronze stuffed with lead are also found as 
weights, 4 and large amounts of gold seem to have been 
beaten out into the same shape and accepted as representing 
a fixed value. We see such gold ox-heads figured both in 
the inventories on the clay tablets at Knossos and on 
the Tomb of Rekhmara, as part of the tribute brought 
by the Keftians, the men of the isles in the midst of the 
sea, to the Egypt of the early fifteenth century. 5 

The transition from a weight to a medium of currency 
is definitely made in the ingots of bronze, nineteen of 
which were found together at Hagia Triada, in a walled- 
up basement chamber. 6 With slight variation, these 
ingots represent the same light Babylonian talent, in 
common use in Egypt at the time, that we have already 
found in the octopus weight. They are found, like 

1 J.H.S. x. 1889, pp. 90-7. 

2 Cor. Num. 1906, pp. 336-67. 

3 Ibid. fig. 1, p. 342 ==B. S.A. vii. fig. 12, p. 42. See below, 
p. 91. A Cor. Num. fig. 9, p. 353. 

5 Cor. Num. figs. 8, 9, p. 353. See below, p. 94. The Rekhmara 
Paintings are nearer 1450 B.C. than 1550, the date which Mr. 
Evans gives, relying unfortunately on H. R. Hall in B.S.A. 
viii. p. 164. 

6 Cor. Num. fig. 12, p. 357. 



16 THE SEA POWER OF MINOS 

the ox-heads, both on the Knossos inventories and as 
tribute on the Rekhmara Tomb. On one of the clay 
tablets * sixty of such ingots are followed by fifty-two and 
a half of another unit, represented by a pair of scales 
or balance, the Greek t&Xclvtov. We have here, as 
Mr. Evans thinks, an equation in which 60 ingots are 
equal to 52 \ " talents " ; for the inference from the fact 
that the Greek word means a balance is too tempting 
to be missed. Or possibly we have a compound sum, 2 
in which two units of the same metal, the ingot and the 
talent, stand like pounds and shillings in the relation of 
whole and part ; so many talents, sixty, say, or a hundred, 
or some number bigger than fifty-two and a half, going to 
make up an ingot. This, if true, would well fit in with 
the fact that the earliest Greek talent, as we find it in 
Homer, was not the big sum that the Athenian allies 
paid as tribute, but only of the value of an ox, the " daric " 
or " sovereign " of the time. On Mr. Evans's view the 
point of the equation is that a gold talent, probably of 
an Egyptian standard, is brought into relation with the 
ingot standard that is, so far as we have found it, always 
of bronze. 

Apart, however, from these inventory figures, there can 
now be classed together a whole series of bits of gold and 
silver, that must have been in actual daily currency as 
fractions of this gold talent, or of one of the other standards 
in use at the time in Egypt and the East. There are 
dumps or drops of gold and silver, and also flat slicings, 
cut with a chisel off a bar of gold, a primitive process from 
which our own " skilling " or " shilling " gets its name.' 
One of these small blobs of silver, 4 weighing 56*4 grains, 
and coming without doubt from a Late Minoan deposit 

1 Cor. Num. fig. 14, p. 361. 

2 As my colleague, Mr. Percy N. Ure, has suggested to me. 

3 Cor. Num. figs. 10, 16, pp. 354, 365. 

* For the possibility of this coming from Laurium, see below, 
p. 118. 



LACK OF FORTIFICATION 17 

at Knossos, is marked with what is either a broad H 
or a h, the first of which is found as a mason's mark, 
and the second as a sign in the linear script. 1 

We have here what is practically a piece of coined 
money, a dump of metal deliberately dropped while in 
a molten state on to a marked surface. The earliest 
coins of Greece and Asia Minor, many centuries later, 
were after all but similar molten dumps ; but while their 
makers, if we follow Mr. Evans's view, 2 only roughened 
the surface on which a drop fell, and stamped it on the 
top or " obverse " side, the Minoan mint began its 
marking on the lower side, and anticipated the " reverse 
type " that has through all later history replaced the 
roughened surface of the first Greek coins. On the rival 
theory, 3 not mentioned by Mr. Evans, the die was in the 
earliest Greek period on the surface upon which the 
drop fell, so that the " obverse of a coin was on its 
lower and not its upper side. The tradition is on this 
view continuous and exact, and for this very reason our 
Minoan dump will probably be claimed in its support. 

Such was the Empire of Knossos, and so it is that in 
the great state entrances on the south and west we find 
not a trace of even the smallest attempt to fortify ; the 
roads led straight into the open country. On the north 
side alone, at a point where the main road from the city 
on the north-west joins that which leads from the harbour, 
there are remains of a tower or guard-house with a bastion 
facing it. 4 It is an attempt to cope, not with a serious 
attack by blockade or by storming, but only with a 
surprise by a party of marauders who might have eluded 
the vigilance of the coastguards ; it is a true exception 
that proves the rule. 

1 Cor. Num. fig. 15, p. 363. 

2 Ibid. p. 366. 

3 G. Macdonald, C.T. 1905, pp. 4, 5 ; G. F. Hill, Handbook, 
1899, p. 148. 

4 B.S.A. vi. p. 49, vii. Plate II., viii. fig. 2, p. 5. 

2 



18 THE SACK OF THE PALACE 

Once, then, that Sea Power was lost, and the invaders 
got a footing on the island, the end was sudden and 
overwhelming. Everywhere there are signs of a great 
conflagration. The blazing of the oil in the store jars of 
the western magazines is probably the reason for the 
preservation of the masses of clay tablets in this part of 
the Palace. These perishable bits of sun-baked clay, once 
released from their broken or burnt coffers of wood, clay, 
or gypsum, would never have survived the dampness of 
the soil if they had not been charred by an unusually 
thorough burning. Fire, that has destroyed so many 
libraries, has preserved Mr. Evans's at Knossos. 1 The 
invaders not only burnt but plundered. There is hardly 
a trace of metal left in the Palace at Knossos. In one 
corner only, on the north-west, a friendly floor level 
seems to have sunk just before the plunderers entered it, 
and hidden from their view five splendid bronze vessels. 
They are all that remain to us, with their delicate designs 
of ivy spray and lily chain, to tell us what the gold and 
silver work was like that was spoiled from Knossos. 8 

The invaders came and went, and it seems to have 
been men of the old stock who used part of the Palace 
site for their humbler dwellings in the days that followed 
the sack. Then a silence seems to fall upon the place. 
The ghostly figures on the walls of the long corridors 
frightened the rude Northern conquerors as they frightened 
Manolis ; and a religious sanctity surrounded the dwell- 
ings of the old Priest-Kings. Over a great part of the 
site there was no building of house, or passing of plough- 
share, or planting of tree, for three thousand years. 

It is this that accounts for the enormous mass of objects 
of art that have been found within what is, after all, 
a small area. There was a diligent search for valuables, 
but the Northerners' conception as to what was worth 
looting was fortunately a limited one. They had not 

1 B.S.A. vi. pp. 19, 56, vii. pp. 83, 101. 

2 Ibid. ix. figs. 76-83, pp. 122-8, vi. p. 68. 



FRESCOES AND PLASTER-WORK 19 

yet progressed beyond the level of the Reuter's Telegram 
which told us last year that in the fire at Seville " the 
archives were totally destroyed, but the cash and the 
valuables were saved." 1 After the sack there was no 
disturbing element but time, and we must be grateful to 
time for the gentle way in which it has dealt with the art 
of Knossos. 

The remains of the frescoes are in themselves consider- 
able. There is the bust of a girl with dark curly hair 
and bright red lips, whose high, but transparent, bodice 
is looped up at the shoulder with a bunch of coloured 
ribbons ; 2 and another figure of a girl dancing, in a 
yellow jacket bordered with blue and red, and a trans- 
parent chemisette. 3 

Plaster-work in low relief was also used in the scheme 
of wall decoration, and M. Gillieron has now con- 
vincingly restored from fragments found south of the 
Central Court a life-size figure of one who must surely 
have been one of the Minoan kings themselves. On his 
head is a crown with a peacock plume, and his long 
flowing hair hangs down upon the fleur-de-lys chain that 
stretches, like some insignia, from shoulder to shoulder 
across his chest.* The artist has contrived, in spite of 
the low relief that he has allowed himself, to model the 
muscles of the fore and upper arm with extraordinary 
accuracy. In much higher relief, and nearer to sculpture 
than to painting, is the ruddy bull's head with the grey 
horn, for which Mr. Evans claims that " no figure of a 
bull, at once so powerful and so true, was produced by 
later classical art." 8 

1 July 11, 1906. 

2 B.S.A. vii. fig. 17, p. 57. 3 Ibid. viii. fig. 28, p. 55. 

4 For the restored figure see the Candia and the Ashmolean 
Museums; for the torso as first discovered, B.S.A. vii. fig. 6, 
p. 17. It was not at first thought to belong to the same figure 
as the peacock plumes. See ibid. pp. 15, 16. 

6 M.R. March 1901, fig. 7, p. 126; B.S.A. vi. fig. 10, p. 52. 
It is unaccountably skied on the walls of the Candia Museum. 



20 PORCELAIN AND IVORY 

Apart from this wall decoration there is not only a 
profusion of vase types — a phenomenon one has been led 
to expect on all Mediterranean sites — but examples of 
other more distinctive kinds of artistic work. The royal 
Draught Board defies description, with its blaze of gold 
and silver, ivory and crystal, and the blue glass paste 
that we read of in Homer as " kuanos." 1 The fabric of por- 
celain introduces us to an art that was utterly unexpected 
in the ^Sgean world, with its delicate shades of green and 
white and brown and lilac. Some plaques formed part of 
a mosaic that covered human life with its varied scenes of 
peace and war. Here we have warriors, the Cretan erect, 
and his darker-skinned enemy prostrate and suppliant. 
Here is the Cretan wild goat or Agrimi, the vine, too, 
and the willow, and curving horizontal bands for running 
water ; a there a whole city, with towers and three- 
storied houses, 3 in whose windows oiled red- tinted parch- 
ment seems to have anticipated the use of glass. A 
mass of burnt cypress found near suggests that all this 
was set in a wooden framework, and formed the decora- 
tion of some royal chest. As Mr. Evans remarks, we 
are nearer to the shield of Achilles than we have ever 
been before. 

Other plaques again, as plausibly reconstructed from 
isolated fragments, give us nature scenes, such as flying 
fish in a border of rocks and sea-shells. 4 It was a subject 
that pleased the fancy of an island people, and inspired 
not only the fresco of the Queen's Megaron, but that 
other painting that carried the fame of Knossos over-seas, 
to the " Blue Room " at Phylakopi. 5 

1 B.S.A. vii. fig. 25, p. 79. For the Optyicos nvdpoio, see Od. 
vii. 87. See the Frieze at Tiryns in 5.5. 1891, fig. 106, 
p. 116. 

2 B.S.A. viii. fig. 10, p. 21. 3 Ibid. figs. 8, 9, pp. 15-7. 

4 Ibid. ix. fig. 46, p. 69. 

5 Ibid. viii. pp. 58-9 ; Phylakopi, pp. 70-2, Plate III. See 
below, p. 179. 



THE BULL-RING 21 

More perfect than all in design and technique is a relief 
of a goat suckling her young, 1 characterised, as it is, not 
only by naturalism, but also, as Mr. Evans claims, " by 
a certain ideal dignity and balance." The surface colour 
is here a pale green with dark sepia markings. Among 
porcelain vases one may specially note a two-handled 
bowl with cockle-shell reliefs, and a pale green vase with 
fern spray decoration, and rose leaves springing in relief 
from the top of the handle and spreading over part of 
the inner margin of the cup. 2 

The technique of the Minoan craftsman in ivory was 
no less perfect than in porcelain, though less widely 
represented in the excavations. In one case it has been 
possible to reconstitute the whole figure of a boy, about 
11 J inches high. He is in the act of jumping, with 
head gracefully thrown back, and arms and legs out- 
stretched. Not only are the muscles faithfully rendered, 
but even the veins on the back of the hand and the 
finger-nails ; 3 while the hair is represented by curling 
bronze wire plated with gold. Such figures formed part 
of some ivory model of the Bull Ring, and are meant to 
suggest the toreadors who loom so large in the art and the 
traditions of Knossos. We can imagine the associations 
which such young toreadors would suggest, hung in the 
air by fine gold chains above the back of an ivory bull, 
when we look at a scene painted on one of the frescoes 
of the palace walls. A girl in " cowboy " costume seems 
just about to be tossed by a charging bull. Mr. Evans 
thinks that this time it has got her, and we may be sure 
that there were tragedies in the Bull Ring ; but here 
there seems a chance, if she is clever, that she may balk 
it after all, and grip its horns and vault safely over its 
back. That is what the boy has done who is turning 
a somersault over it in front of her ; while another girl 

1 B.S.A. ix. Plate III. 

2 Ibid. figs. 51, 53a, 53b, pp. 73, 74. 

3 Ibid. viii. fig. 39, p. 74, and Plates II. and III. 



22 CANDIA AND KNOSSOS 

— we know them by their white skin — is holding out 
both hands to catch him in his fall. 1 

The closer, indeed, that one looks into the excavations 
at Knossos, the less wonder is there that they have needed 
six seasons' work. To understand them fully we must visit 
Candia — easy of access from Athens, even if we hit upon 
no special pilgrimage — and see in its now famous museum 
the care and skill with which frescoes and vases and porce- 
lains and ivories have been pieced together and set and 
restored. We must walk out, too, the few miles that 
separate Knossos from the sea, and pas's through the chain 
of hills that envelop it, and look for the conning tower 
on the crown of the knoll, from which Mr. Evans, with 
his fidus Achates, Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, by his side, 
takes his survey of his dominions. 

We only then realise how extraordinarily well Mr. 
Evans does things. It is not only the luncheon he gives us 
under the olive-trees, with the red wine from Mount Ida, 
and the droning bagpipe tune of the peasants' mandolins, 
and the ring dance, reminiscent in its rhythmical bend of 
arm and clap of hand and knee of our own Highland reels, 
but tracing, as excavations tell us, 2 its own native Cretan 
pedigree back to the ritual of Minoan times. The absence 
of the "dry light" which we notice as readers and as guests, 
is even more noticeable in the way in which Mr. Evans 
treats his excavations. He is not content to leave them 
clean and well ordered, though the disgracefully untidy 
state in which the French have left Delos shows that even 
so much is not to be expected of all explorers. He has 

1 B.S.A. vii. p. 94, viii. p. 74. A copy of the Fresco is in 
the Ashmolean Museum. See also the figure turning a somersault 
over a bull's back on the clay seal impression, ibid. viii. fig. 43, 
p. 78. 

2 See B.S.A. x. 1903-4, p. 217, where R. M. Dawkins 
describes some figurines discovered by the British School at 
Palaikastro, where three votaries are dancing hand in hand round 
a snake goddess. See also Evans's remarks in B.S.A. ix. 
pp. 1 1 1-2. 



MR. EVANS AS AN EXCAVATOR 23 

made it his object not only to unearth and preserve, but 
wherever possible to restore and reproduce the original 
effect. He has in him something of the spirit of Viollet- 
le-Duc, though chastened by scientific method. The work 
of keeping in position staircases and supporting upper 
floor levels to a height of over 20 feet 1 has in itself 
been a huge one, and no expense has been spared to make 
it perfect ; while even on the ground floor there has 
been need for taste and ingenuity in reproducing the shape 
and colour of Minoan columns to support the roof by 
which the Throne Room is protected from stress of 
weather. 2 

1 B.S.A. xi. p. 26. , 2 Ibid. vii. p. 2. 



CHAPTER II 

THE PALACES OF PHiESTOS AND HAGIA TRIADA, 
AND THE EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE 

We have spoken above of a visit to the Candia Museum 
as necessary to a full understanding of the glories of 
Knossos. If, however, such a visit were made with the 
expectation of seeing Knossos, and nothing but Knossos, 
the visitor would receive a shock. Various as they are, 
Mr. Evans's finds fill barely half the room. Though no 
single site can claim to rival Knossos, their cumulative 
effect is almost as remarkable. It is not merely that 
isolated deposits have been found at many points, such 
as the interesting series of tombs in Eastern Crete, at 
Muliana, Milatos, Kavusi, and Erganos near Lyttos, that 
illustrate the transition from the Bronze to the Iron 
Age ; 1 or the strange red and black mottled ware of the 
early house at Vasiliki near Gournia, 2 and the gems and 
high-spouted vases that come from Hagios Onuphrios 
farther south ; 3 or the polychrome pottery that will 
henceforward, wherever found, record its first discovery 
by Mr. J. L. Myres, 4 in the Kamares cave on the southern 
slopes of Mount Ida. The other more famous cave of Ida, 
the cave in the central peak that challenged the claims of 
Dicte to be the birthplace of Zeus, has been defeated in 
trial by excavation. In a grotto on the slopes of Dicte 
above the village of Psychro, Mr. D. G. Hogarth found a 

1 See pp. 101-2, 209-17. 

2 T.D.A.P. iii. Part I. pp. 213-21. See below, p. 49. 

3 J.H.S. xiv. p. 325. See below, pp. 52, 75. 

4 P.S.A. xv. 1895, pp. 351-6, Plates I.-IV. See below, p. 59. 

24 




ITANOS 

■ttos _ ^ ^ X^jy Ipalaikastr 

'CAVb!~C\ £ [JULIANA PETHA 
Oicta MT?V ^»~W V 'PRAESOS 



Sketch Map of Crete 



PLATE II 



DICTE AND LEUKE 25 

mass of votive offerings, knives and brooches and vases, 
and the double axes that loom so large in the cult of 
Minoan times. 1 It was this grotto, without doubt, that 
early Greek tradition, in the centuries that followed the 
sack of Knossos, fabled as the birth cave of Zeus, the 
holy ground that dimly symbolised the passing away of 
the old faith before the new. It was here that Mother 
Rhea fled to bear the King of Heaven that was to be, God 
made in the image of man ; while Father Kronos and 
the world he ruled, confident that the new anthropo- 
morphism was destroyed, clung to the stone child, the 
aniconic pillar worship that expressed itself in the Bethels 
of the Semites and the Pillar Rooms at Knossos. 2 It 
was here that Zeus, come to man's estate and the 
throne of Heaven, loved the daughter of man, Europa ; 3 
and here that their son Minos went up into the mountain, 
while his people waited below, and, like Moses, communed 
with God. Like Moses, too, he came down with the Com- 
mandments, 4 the Imperial Law that governed the ^Egean, 
and followed men, so the legend ran, even to Hades 
below, where Minos judged among the dead. 5 

At Leuke, a little island off the south-east coast, we 
pass from the religion of the Minoan world to its commerce. 
The bank of crushed murex shell that Professor Bosanquet 
found here, and again at Palaikastro, in company with a 
whole mass of Kamares pottery, 6 shows that the men of 
Sidon and Tyre were not the first to practise the dyeing 
of purple. iEschylus was more of an antiquarian than 
he knew when he made Clytemnestra play upon the 

1 M.R. Jan. 1901, pp. 49-62, with ten (unnumbered) Plates ; 
B.S.A. vi. pp. 94-116, Plates VIII. -XI. figs. 27-50. See below, 
chap. viii. 

2 Hesiod, Theog. 459-91 ; Evans in J.H.S. xxi. pp. 99-204, 
figs. 1-70 and Plate V. See below, chaps, viii., ix. 

3 Lucian, Dial. Mar. xv. 326-7. 

4 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. ii. 61 ; Strabo, 476. 

5 Od. xi. 568-71. 

6 B.S.A. ix. pp. 276-7 ; J.H.S. xxiv. p. 321. 



26 THE EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN CRETE 

wopcpvpoo-TpooTos 77-0/30?, that grim red path that she would 
make Agamemnon walk ; l Knossos and Mycenae knew 
well enough that ! 

There is a sea — and who shall drain it dry ? 

It was a trading station, too, that the Minoans 
founded somewhat late in their history in the sheltered 
bay of Zakro, on the eastern coast of Crete. 2 The five 
hundred clay seal impressions that Mr. Hogarth found 
in a single house there must have been made from one 
hundred and fifty different gems or rings, the designs 
covering almost the whole range of Cretan seal stones, 
from monsters such as Minotaurs and Eagle-Ladies to 
naturalistic bulls and lions, or cult scenes with shrines and 
worshippers. 3 The merchant to whom they belonged 
may have attached them to bales of goods, or to bills 
of lading for his foreign trade. 4 Even to-day Zakro is 
still the principal half-way house for sailing craft between 
the iEgean and the north coast of Africa. 5 Its gems, and 
the mass of vases, superfluous votive offerings perhaps 
from some neighbouring shrine, that were found heaped 
together in a pit or " lakkos," 6 were the most noteworthy 
finds of Zakro ; the houses of its well-to-do traders, 
which in other circumstances might have seemed evidence 
enough for the middle-class life of the Minoan age, have 
been outshone by the more extensive excavations at 
Gournia and Palaikastro. 

At Gournia, in a sheltered bay on the northern coast, 
Miss H. A. Boyd 7 has unearthed a whole city, continuously 
inhabited during the greater part of the Minoan age, 

1 Agam. 910, 958. 

2 Hogarth in B.S.A. vii. pp. 121-49 ? Dawkins in ibid. xi. 
p. 274. Bosanquet, ibid. ix. p. 281. 

3 J.H.S. xxii. Plates VI. — X. figs. 1-33, pp. 76-93. See 
below, p. 127. * Bosanquet in J.H.S. xxi. p. 339. 

5 B.S.A. vii. p. 123. 

6 Ibid. pp. 126-8. See below, p. 85. 

7 Now Mrs. C. H. Hawes. 



ZAKRO, GOURNIA, AND PALAIKASTRO 27 

but since that time so entirely deserted that many of the 
best objects of bronze and terracotta were found within 
less than 2 feet of the surface. 1 We see here the ground- 
plan of masses of houses, with their upper walls of fire- 
baked brick on a basis of stone, and traces of staircases 
and second stories ; houses whose general effect must have 
been just that which we see on the porcelain mosaic from 
Knossos. 2 We can pass up to the palace on the hill 
through street after street of the houses of the people, 
treading the narrow five-foot roadway of flagged stones 
as it winds through them like the Sacred Way at Delphi 
or at Rome. In the centre of the town, too, approached 
by a well-worn road of its own, was a little shrine about 
10 feet square ; and on the floor of beaten earth a 
primitive terracotta idol of a goddess, with a snake 
entwined around her, and little doves and a three-legged 
altar, and vases decorated with the double axe and the 
horns of consecration familiar to Minoan cult. 3 

At Roussolakkos, the " red hollow " at Palaikastro, 
red from the mouldering of the Minoan brickwork, 
there has been excavated just another such city as at 
Gournia. 4 Apart from the important outlying sites, the 
Neolithic houses at Magasa, and the early ossuaries in 
the mountain glens, and the sanctuary from which came 
the Queen Elizabeth figurines at Petsofa, 5 the British 
School has unearthed a city of continuous houses, more 
than 400 feet long by 350 broad, whose many blocks or 
' insulae " might seem almost to need the more elaborate 
grouping of the " regiones " of Pompeii. 6 

Above all, at Phsestos, in the centre of the southern 
coast, some ten miles from Gortyna, Dr. Halbherr and the 
Italian mission have excavated a Palace which from 

1 C.R.A.C. p. 226 ; A.S.I. 1904, pp. 561-70. 

2 See p. 20. 3 A.S.I. 1904, Plate II. fig. 1. 
* B.S.A. viii., ix., x., xi. 

5 Ibid. xi. pp. 260-8, ix. pp. 344-50, 356-87. Sec below 
p. 53- ° Ibid. ix. Plate VI., xi. Plate IX. 



28 THE ITALIAN EXCAVATIONS 

the architectural point of view is as magnificent as that 
of Knossos itself. In many respects indeed the two 
Palaces are strikingly alike : the central court with the 
living-rooms grouped round it, the long corridors and 
spacious store-rooms, the west court and the theatral 
area, the beautifully wrought walls of limestone and 
gypsum, the total absence of fortifications — all these are 
common to both. 1 Phsestos appears to have been a 
Palace pure and simple, and was naturally built on a 
slightly smaller scale than Knossos, which was the capital 
of an Empire and the centre of business and of govern- 
ment. 2 In its great State Entrance, however, or Propylsea, 
with its twelve steps still intact, 45 feet wide, 
Phaestos has the advantage. 3 So it has too in its striking 
natural position, on the lowest of three hills that, rising 
one above the other, like three great steps, command the 
fertile plain of the Messara. It is in the remains that 
were found in it that Phaestos falls short of its sister site. 
An interesting architectural point is raised by some stone 
carvings, with a vertical triple-grooved design. 4 So often 
is this design found that Mr. Fyfe, when discussing its 
occurrence on a miniature fresco at Knossos, 5 calls it 
the most distinctive architectural ornament of the age. 
There is every probability that we may see in it the 
prototype of the " Triglyphs M that alternate with 
Metopes on the entablature of the Doric Temple. 8 Apart 
from this, little was found of note, except some fine vases 7 
and one graceful flower fresco. 8 Phaestos, it may be re- 
marked, like Knossos, was inhabited from Neolithic days. 

1 Mon. Ant. xii. 1902, especially Plates III. and VI. and fig. 10, 
p. 36 ; and xiv. 1905, especially Plates XXIX. and XXXI. and 
fig. 44, p. 422. a J.B.A. x. 1902, p. 104. 

3 Mon. Ant. xii. Plate IV., xiv. Plate XXX. ; B.S.A. xi. 
Plate VI. See below, p. 79. 

4 Mon. Ant. xii. 1902, Plate VII. No. 1, and fig. 13, p. 47. 

5 J.B.A. x. 1902, Plate II. 6 Ibid pp. 126, 127. 

7 Mon. Ant. xiv. 1905, Plate XXVIII. 

8 Ibid. figs. 28a, 28b, pp. 381, 382. 



THE THOLOS OF HAGIA TRIADA 29 

It was fortunate for the Italians that they were 
compensated for the inexplicable barrenness of Phsestos 
by the wonderful remains, both of early and mature 
Minoan art, that they found on the hill of Hagia Triada, 
two miles to the north-west. A round chamber tomb 
with a diameter of nearly 30 feet was found literally 
packed with skeletons, like a charnel-house ; two hundred 
were found in it alone, and fifty in some later chambers 
that adjoined it. 1 These were not the dead of a single 
battle, for among them were the bones of women and 
children ; it was rather the tomb of a tribe used for 
many years, or an hereditary family vault. 2 The incised 
and primitive painted pottery, the rude seals and idols 
and short copper dagger-blades that were found with 
the bodies, belong, as we shall see later, 3 to the second 
and third early Minoan periods that follow soon after 
the Neolithic age. It is interesting to notice, therefore, 
that the tomb must originally have been of the vaulted 
Tholos type that reached its highest expression in the 
beehive tombs of Mycenae, the so-called " Treasury of 
Atreus," and the rest. The lower courses of this 
Hagia Triada Tholos, which still remain standing along 
with those of the narrow three-foot passage or " dromos ' 
that formed its entrance, show r that the circular form 
that we find in the mainland was in Crete also an early 
form of chamber tomb. Three others have been opened 
by Dr. Xanthoudides at Koumasa near Gortyna, while 
at Sitia he thinks he has found a trace of the circular 
hut of the living, the wigwam on which the Tholos 
tombs were modelled. 4 The Royal Tomb at Isopata, 

1 M.I.L. xxi. 5, p. 249, and Plates VIII., IX., figs. 18-20 ; 
Rend. xiv. 1905, pp. 392-7. 

2 So Halbherr, op. cit. Does, however, the promiscuity point 
to reinterment ? See Bosanquet and others in B.S.A. viii. 305, 
ix. 348, x. 229, xi. 292. 

3 See p. 49. For the chambers, see p. 52. 

* See a short account in Ath. Mitt. xxxi. 1906, pp. 367-8. They 
will later be fully published in 'E</>. 'Ap^. See below, p. 169. 



30 THE ITALIAN EXCAVATIONS 

on the other hand, and the Zafer Papoura cemetery, 
show that in Crete the elaborate chamber tombs of the 
great palace periods, from Middle Minoan III. onward, 
had a ground plan that was not circular, but rectangular 
and almost square. 1 Whether these square tombs are 
a modification of an originally round type, or an inde- 
pendent development from the Neolithic rock-shelter, 
the vaulted roof is a point that they have in common 
with the Tholos tombs. The horizontal courses of the 
side walls are laid so that they project inwards one 
above the other, and finally meet at the top ; 2 just 
as in the circular Treasury of Atreus the courses get 
gradually smaller in diameter, and are cut to give the 
appearance of a springing vault with an undisturbed flow 
of line from floor to apex. In neither, it may be noticed, 
have we the principle of the true arch, in which the stones 
are laid in wedges that converge towards a keystone. 3 
The true arch had already been used in Mesopotamia, 
where there has been found, in the pre-Sargonic stratum 
at Nippur, an arched passage that is formed of radiating 
bricks and has a keystone of wedge-shaped joints of 
clay mortar. 4 In the i^gean area, except, oddly enough, 
in the out-of-the-way district of Acarnania, 5 it was 
avoided until Roman times, on the Hindoo principle, 
perhaps, that " an arch never sleeps." 

The hill of Hagia Triada, however, was used for some- 
thing more important than an ossuary. It lies above 
the river Electra, and overlooks the sea ; three thousand 

1 P.T. pp. 3, 4, fig. i, p. 5 ; Fyfe in ibid. p. 163, and 
Plate XCIV. See below, pp. 65, 168-9. 

2 P.T. fig. 145, p. 162. 

3 Perrot et Chipiez, vol. vi. Plate VII. p. 635 ; Frazer, Patisanias, 
vol. iii. fig. 23, p. 124. 

4 Hilprecht, E.B.L. p. 399. The passage was over the drain, 
mentioned on p. 9 of the present work. 

5 See the interesting article by B. Powell on the Arches of 
CEniadae, etc., in A. J. A. 1904, figs. 3 and 7, pp. 149, 154. For 
other slight exceptions see Walters, A.G. 1906, p. ^^. 



the; HAGIA TRIADA SARCOPHAGUS 31 

years ago, before the river deposit enlarged the delta, the 
sea may almost have washed the foot of the hill. 1 It 
was here that the lords of Phsestos built a splendid 
country villa, 2 and the conflagration that overwhelmed 
it has preserved for us here, as at Knossos, all that the 
invaders did not think worth plundering. 

The fresco on which a great brown cat is gathering 
itself together to spring upon a red pheasant 3 recalls a 
well-known dagger-blade from the fifth Shaft grave at 
Mycenae, in which cat-like animals hunt wild ducks in 
a river marsh ; 4 but the fresco is, of course, on a larger 
scale, the cat being 12 inches, the bird 4 inches high. 
It is curiously similar in style and subject, though superior 
in vivacity, to the cat and bird fresco of an XVIIIth 
Dynasty tomb at Thebes. 5 

A painted sarcophagus gives us in greater detail than 
we have ever had before a scene of primitive worship. 6 
On one side is a sacrificial procession, carrying offerings 
towards the figure of a youth. He stands in front of a 
richly decorated construction, that seems to be the 
door of a tomb, or of a chapel crowning it. He is 
completely wrapped in a mantle that covers even both 
his arms, and the air of immobility that is thus given 
to his figure suggests that we have here a representation 
of the dead man himself. 7 On the other long side of the 
sarcophagus is a bull bound by cords on a low altar, 
while his blood pours into a bucket below ; the ends of 
the cords are held by two white hands, those of a woman 
without doubt, though the rest of the figure has been 
destroyed ; above the animal a man with two long black 

1 Bosanquet in J.H.S. xxii. p. 388. 

2 M.I.L. xxi. 5, Plates I.-IV. ; Rend. xiv. 1905, figs. 2-4. 

3 Mon. Ant. xiii. 1903, Plate VIII. and pp. 57-8. 

* S.S. fig. 270, p. 266. 5 See p. 93. 

6 Paribeni in Rend. xii. 1903, pp. 343-8. It is unfortunately 
not yet published. 

7 Paribeni, op. cit ; Evans, P.T. p. 169. 



32 THE ITALIAN EXCAVATIONS 

hanging curls is playing on a double flute. On a third 
side is a two-wheeled chariot, drawn by a pair of horses, 
and one of the two white-fleshed " deep-bosomed " 
women that ride in it holds, like Nausicaa in the Odyssey, 1 
the four red reins. 

The religious dress of the men of Minoan times was 
much more complicated, it here appears, 2 than the 
embroidered loin-cloth that we find them wearing at 
war or the chase, or in the ordinary routine of daily 
life. One of the men on our sarcophagus, striking with 
a bow the many strings of a gold lyre, wears a long 
robe that reaches right down to the feet, strangely 
like that of the women of classical Greece, while from 
his shoulders flutters a veil or mantilla. The same 
veil is worn by a richly dressed woman who walks in 
procession with him, while on her hair there are red 
flowers. 

No less remarkable than this sarcophagus are three 
vases of black steatite or soapstone, two of which, by 
the great kindness of Dr. Halbherr, are here reproduced 
for the first time in England. Admirable as they are 
from an artistic point of view in their present condition, 
they must have been still more magnificent when coated 
with gold-leaf. Mr. Evans's suggestion that this was 
originally the case, made on purely a priori grounds, 
has been confirmed by the discovery at Palaikastro 3 of 
a similar steatite vase with a particle of gold-leaf still 
adhering to it. The zone decoration that is character- 
istic of these vases must have been begun in bronze 
technique, the vessel being formed of metal bands riveted 
together. The tradition of this kind of bronze vessel 
built up of decorated zones, one above the other, found 

1 vi. 81-2. 

2 See also B.S.A. vii. p. 20. Hall (O.C.G. 1901, p. 278) makes 
a similar remark, justified, it may be noticed, by results, though 
at the time only based on " Late Mycenaean " vases from Cyprus. 

3 By Currelly, J.H.S. xxiv. p. 320. 



GOLD, BRONZE, AND STONE 33 

its way to North Italy and the head of the Adriatic, 1 
and passed thence through Central Europe to influence 
the zoned Celtic urns, such as have been found at Ayles- 
ford in our own county of Kent. 2 In Crete, however, 
the metal-workers were not content with bronze, but as 
their skill grew perfect, sought to express it in a more 
splendid metal. Solid gold was beaten up with a blunt 
instrument from behind into bold relief, and finished 
with a sharp chisel in front. The finest examples of 
this goldsmith's work, unequalled at any time except 
during the Italian Renaissance, were brought to light 
eighteen years ago in a beehive tomb at Vaphio in the 
Peloponnese ; 8 but, although found on the mainland, 
these famous bull-trapping cups are now generally 
believed to have been an import from a Cretan 
workshop. 

How common such solid gold work was we cannot 
tell. It tempted the cupidity of the Northerners, and 
was melted down for their ruder uses. It was an attempt 
to produce the effect of gold in a cheaper medium, or 
only, perhaps, an act of assertion on the part of the 
stone-carvers that they could do as well, that produced 
this gold-coated steatite. It has survived to us because 
the looter happily found out the fraud before he left 
the building, stripped off the gold-leaf, and threw the 
vases down with a spite so well moderated that we are 
able to reconstruct the fragments. 

The tallest of the three vases (Plate I. a 4 ), which would 

1 Zannoni, S.C.B. 1876, Plate XXXV. figs. 6, 7, and CXLIX. 
fig. 8 (= Montelius C.P.I. Plates CV. figs. 1, 2, and C. fig. 1), 
for Bologna; and Hoernes U.K. 1898, Plates XXXIII. and 
XXXV. figs. 2, 5, 6 for Lower Austria and the Tyrol. 

2 Evans in Arch. Hi. 1890, p. 335. See also a summary of his 
Rhind Lecture on " The ancient Venetian Art Province, and 
its influence on the Celtic races," in Scotsman, December 14, 1805. 
It is still unfortunately unpublished. 

3 S.S. 1 891, App. Plate III. See below, pp. 88, 136-7. 

4 First published by Halbherr in Rend. xiv. 1905, pp. 365-405, 

3 



34 THE ITALIAN EXCAVATIONS 

indeed have been costly in solid gold, has its 18 inches 
of height decorated by designs placed one above the 
other in four separate zones. The second from the top 
shows two furious charging bulls, one of them tossing 
a man who hangs extended and helpless on its horns. 
The rest of the zone is badly preserved, but the Italian 
explorers consider that it represents a bull hunt, rather 
than a scene from the bull ring, such as we see on the 
frescoes at Knossos. The other three zones describe a 
kind of gladiatorial show. Boxers are here seen in every 
attitude, some triumphant with the left arm held out 
for guarding, and the right drawn back to strike, one 
(the figure in the top right corner of our illustration) 
gathering himself together for his spring, like Hector 
as he made ready to swoop on Achilles ; 1 others prostrate 
on the ground, with their feet kicking in the air. The 
helmets worn on two of the zones are of different types, 
and on the bottom zone the boxers are bareheaded, and 
may possibly be meant for youths, in contrast to the 
men above them ; there are traces of some kind of 
boxing glove or cestus. 

It is interesting to notice that boxers in a similar 
" stylised " attitude are to be seen on the fragments 
of a steatite pyxis found at Knossos in 1901, 2 and a clay 
seal impression also found there in 1903. 3 On the latter 
there is also behind the boxer a column with a rectangular 
capital, such as occurs in the designs just described. 
Pugilism was clearly one of the Minoan sports as well 
as bull-baiting. 

A visit to the Bologna Museum, or a glance at Zannoni 
or Hoernes, 4 will show the connection between such a 

fig. 1. See also Paribeni in ibid. xii. 1903, p. 331, and Halbherr in 
M.I.L. xxi. 5, 1905, pp. 240-1. 

1 II. xxii. 308, oifirjcrev 8e dXels. 

2 B.S.A. vii. fig. 31, p. 95. 3 Ibid. ix. fig. 35, p. 56. 

4 Op. cit. above, p. 33. For the discovery of Late Minoan III. 
vases at the head of the Adriatic, see below, pp. 125, 157, 



THE BOXER VASE AND THE ETRUSCANS 35 

vase as this and the remarkable group of bronze vessels 
that come from North Italy and Lower Austria. Two 
of their distinguishing features are, first, their scheme 
of depicting various scenes from daily life in two, three, 
or four superimposed zones, and secondly, the prominent 
part played in these scenes by groups of contending 
boxers. It need scarcely be added that in the type of 
human figure which he represents and in the skill with 
which he depicts it the " Italo-Illyrian " artist is much 
coarser than the Minoan. 

The relation of this Italo-Illyrian art to Etruscan 
is a question that deserves further attention. 1 Not only 
were the Etruscans famous for boxing, 8 but the paintings 
on the walls of the tombs of Clusium, 3 and Tarquinii, 4 
show us boxers who in pose and type of figure remind 
us so forcibly of the Bologna and Tyrol jars that there 
can be no question of coincidence. They are repre- 
sented, too, as fighting in the same way over a low 
stick or stool on which rests a helmet or a piece of em- 
broidery. Whether or no this represents the prize, 5 it 
is clear that the stool itself serves to limit their advance, 
like the barrier that ran down the lists in the Tournaments 
of later mediaeval times. Our " ring " points to a different 
set of rules, and so apparently does the column that 
marks the scene of Minoan boxing. 

The second of the steatite vases (Plate I. b and c), 6 

1 Dennis i. p. xxxvi. n. 8. Montelius, op. cit. One cannot 
judge from the summary whether Evans considered this in his 
Rhind Lecture. For the importance of the question, see below, 
p. 125. a Livy, i. 35. 

3 The Monkey Tomb. Dennis, ii. p. 332. 

4 The Tomb of the Inscriptions. Dennis, i. p. 364. See also 
ibid. i. pp. 317, 378, 399 ; ii. pp. 324, 342. 

6 Dennis, ii. p. 332, thinks that what I have called embroidery 
is the clothes they have just taken off. 

6 First published by Savignoni in Mon. Ant. xiii. 1903, Plates 
I. -III. p. 85 seq. An excellent plaster copy of the vase can be 
obtained from the authorities of the Candia Museum for six francs. 



36 THE ITALIAN EXCAVATIONS 

midway in size between the other two, represents one 
single scene, and that with such masterly naturalism that 
it seems irony that we cannot agree as to what it means. 
A body of muscular-looking men in loin-cloths and flat 
caps are marching in some kind of triumphal pro- 
cession. Leading them is an elderly man of importance, 
bareheaded, and with long flowing locks and a physio- 
gnomy as distinctive as those of the gold masks from the 
graves of Mycenae, and curiously like one of them. 1 In 
the middle are four persons — one an Egyptian priest, 
if we may judge from the fact that he is without 
the narrow native Cretan waist, playing the musical 
metal rattle called a sistrum ; the other three, perhaps 
women, shouting in chorus with open mouths. So much 
is clear. The difficulty comes when we try to interpret 
the curious garment worn by the elderly leader, and the 
still more curious implements carried by him and his 
followers. On one theory the scene represents a harvest 
feast ; on the other a triumph after a naval victory. 
The former sees in the fringed scale-like object on the 
leader's back a ceremonial "cope" with the markings 
of fur or skin or wickerwork, the latter a coat of chain 
armour. The one theory regards the long three-pronged 
forks from the obvious point of view as agricultural 
instruments, and the short cross-bar lashed to them at 
a right angle just below the prongs as also serving some 
function in rick-making ; the other sees in them a com- 
posite naval weapon, in which the cross-bar was used 
for grappling, and the fork as a bayonet. 8 

Whether the thanksgiving is one for success in peace 

1 S.S. 1891, fig. 224, p. 226. 

2 Such as the dopydpenavop mentioned in the Laches, or the 
Roman falx muralis. Savignoni, in Mon. Ant. xiii., compares 
also the trident of the retiarii and the lyx«* apcpiyva, of Iliad xv. 
711. The farmer's stick is, according to him, a kovto? or £vo-tov. 
See the battle by the ships in Iliad, xv. 384, 676-7, 730, 742. For 
the other view, see Bosanquet in J.H.S. xxii. p. 389. 



THE HARVESTER VASE 37 

or war, we can at least be sure that the processidn is 
a religious one. The sistrum was never used for war 
music, but only for the purposes of religion, 1 and some 
gems that represent the tasselled garment that the leader 
wears show it in a distinctly religious connection. On 
a gem from Zakro 2 it is being carried by a man who does 
not wear the loin-cloth, but a baggy kind of knicker- 
bockers like the Moslem trousers of to-day ; he is carrying 
it away from another man similarly clothed, whom he 
presumably has been disrobing ; between them is a 
sacred double axe. On a seal from Hagia Triada 3 are 
two figures in the same knickerbockers, but here we 
have the robing, and not the disrobing ; the one man 
has taken the cope from the other, and has put it 
over his head, but the fact that his arms do not come 
through show that it is not properly on, and his knicker- 
bockers show beneath it ; he has his back turned to a 
pillared building that seems to represent one of the 
shrines we find on other gems and frescoes. 4 Two of the 
copes again are found on a sardonyx gem from the 
Heraeum at Argos, 5 flanking a bull's head with the double 
axe above it. May we not see such a thing, too, in the 
" cuirass," 6 worn by the man on the gem from Knossos 
who is bending his body forward towards a seated Calf- 
Man monster ? The way that the cope stands out from 

1 In spite of Virgil, Mn. viii. 696. So R. Weil in Rev. Arch. 
1904, p. 52. 

a Hogarth in J.H.S. xxii. 1902, Plate VI. No. 6 = fig. 5, p. 78. 
Evans in B.S.A. vii. p. 54, thought it was a woman. 

3 Halbherr in Mon. Ant. xiii. 1903, fig. 35, p. 41. See Savignoni, 
ibid. p. 1 14. 

4 E.g. J.H.S. xxi. fig. 48, p. 170, fig. 53, p. 177. 

5 Furtwangler in A.G. Plate II. No. 42. He wrongly took 
the copes to be " fischrcuscn " or fixed nets for catching 
fish. 

6 So Evans calls it. It is a clay seal impression, B.S.A. vii. 
fig. 7a, p. 18. I owe the suggestion to my pupil, Mr. J. 11. 
Sanders. See below, pp.128, 207. 



38 THE ITALIAN EXCAVATIONS 

the body on the Hagia Triada gem points to it being of 
stiff material, such as wickerwork. 1 

The smallest of the vases, unhappily not yet pub- 
lished, 8 is only 4 inches high. It represents a small 
group of warriors, some of them in line of battle, with 
only head and feet showing above and below a line of 
tall, tower-like shields locked close together. The ox-tail 
is still on them, which proves that, whether or no they 
were strengthened with metal, their foundation was of 
hide. The two principal figures stand apart, one holding 
a lance or staff, the other a long sword. Both alike are 
clad in the usual embroidered loin-cloth and gartered 
buskins. The staff-bearer is considerably the taller and 
stouter limbed, and is bareheaded ; he has long flowing 
hair, and more chains on his neck and arms than the 
sword-bearer, who wears his hair short or closely gathered 
up under his great plumed helmet. Is the first the King 3 
giving orders to his captain or his son going out to battle ? 
Or is the greater dignity with which his size seems to 
invest him only due to the desire of the artist to leave 
no blank space above his figures ? In the case of the 
sword-bearer, the question would not arise, as the extra 
space was required for the plume of his helmet. The 
flowing hair and uncovered head can scarcely be quoted 
here as proof of rank, on the analogy of the Leader in 
the Harvester vase ; for the one man of those behind the 
row of shields whose head is preserved is also bareheaded 
and has flowing hair, and yet is, without doubt, a soldier 
in the ranks. It is conceivable that the staff-bearer is 
an envoy from another city, holding parley with the 
chieftain and his men. 

In any case the ideal grace and dignity of these two 
figures, the pose with which they throw head and body 

1 The views here expressed in regard to the religious char- 
acter of this garment differ from those of the Italian excavators. 

2 Described by Paribeni in Rend. xii. 1903, p. 324. 

3 So the Italian excavators. 



THE CHIEFTAIN VASE 39 

back, is beyond any representation of the human figure 
hitherto known before the best period of Archaic Hellenic 
art. The fresco of the Cupbearer is the only thing that 
comes anywhere near it ; with other human figures, even 
from Knossos, they have little in common except the 
narrow Minoan waist. 



CHAPTER III 

THE BEGINNINGS OF MINOAN CIVILISATION 

This mass of discoveries on Cretan sites has not only 
made the Candia Museum one of the most important in 
the world, but has also immensely complicated the archaeo- 
logical situation. The position created by Mr. Evans's 
first excavations at Knosso's was simple and comfortable. 
The word Mycenaean was still used of everything which 
came between the Neolithic age and the beginnings of 
classical Greece. Within this vast period an evolution 
had, of course, been recognised, and Pre- and Sub- 
Mycenaean were terms commonly in use. A glance, how- 
ever, at a book such as the first volume of Professor 
Ridgeway's Early Age of Greece, published in 1901, will 
show how vague such distinctions were, and to what a 
large extent Mycenaean civilisation was still regarded as 
an indivisible whole. In this civilisation Crete was found 
without surprise to have played the leading part that 
tradition had always claimed for it. The closest deter- 
mination of date which we seemed likely to secure was 
that the mature bloom of the art of Knossos was an 
earlier stage than that represented in the lower town 
of Mycenae, and practically contemporary with that of 
the fourth Shaft grave on its acropolis. The simplicity 
and the danger of such " thinking in millenniums " is 
well illustrated by Professor Ridgeway's book itself. 
The impression left on the reader is that between the 
Neolithic age and the Geometric there was just time 
enough for the Pelasgians to be overthrown by the 

40 



MYCENAEAN AND MINOAN 41 

Achaeans. Learned and original as the writer is, he never 
faces the question whether the facts at his disposal are 
at all likely to be sufficient to account for the events of 
two or three thousand years. We have the uncomfortable 
feeling that a similar way of dealing with a similar amount 
of knowledge might have given us the conquest of Britons 
by Saxons as a full and adequate account of the thousand 
years in the history of our own island which precede 
the Norman invasion. 

Mr. Evans himself, and, indeed, his immediate fellow- 
workers, never fell into this error ; we find them from the 
first feeling tentatively after a closer determination of 
date. Such dating, modified as it has inevitably been 
by the yearly progress of discovery, makes the reading 
of Mr. Evans's earlier reports dangerous work, and even 
his present conclusions l must not in every detail be 
accepted as his final ones. Before discussing their 
soundness or the problems they suggest, it may be well 
briefly to describe them. We notice first and foremost 
that Mr. Evans has banished the word Mycenaean as a 
generic description of the early civilisation of Crete, and 
has substituted for it the word Minoan. The reason for 
a change of some kind is not far to seek. Between the 
Neolithic age and the Geometric Mr. Evans has found 
himself able to distinguish nine epochs ; and it is only 
in the seventh that the earliest of the remains found at 
Mycenae itself can be said to begin ; while it is only the 
ninth which is coincident with the widest diffusion of 
what has hitherto been known as Mycenaean culture. 

Whether the word Minoan was the best one to sub- 
stitute is of course another matter. It is argued by some 
German archaeologists, such as Dr. Dorpfeld 2 and Pro- 
fessor Reisch, 8 that it is absurd to describe periods that 

1 As given in E.C. 1906, B.S.A. xi. 1906, and on the labels 
of the Ashmolean Museum. 

2 A th. Mitt. xxx. 1905, p. 296. 

3 A,G.W. 1904, Sitz, p. [14], u. 1. 



42 THE BEGINNINGS OF MINOAN CIVILISATION 

stretch over thousands of years by a name that was 
presumably given to one particular historical personage. 
For the plea which they put in for the time-honoured 
word Mycenaean, consecrated by Schliemann's epoch- 
making discoveries, we have much sympathy, and there 
is no doubt that the ambiguity that now involves the 
term Mycenaean, used sometimes in its old generic and 
sometimes in its new specific sense, will for a long time 
to come lead to confusion. On the other hand the 
argument that the term is inapplicable to the early 
periods that are almost unrepresented at or near Mycenae ■ 
is unanswerable. Racial names such as Achaean or 
Carian, after which Dr. Dorpfeld hankers, are out of 
the question, as the}* take for granted racial theories 
that are the subject of debate. " .Egean," on the other 
hand, which Professor Reisch supports, will possibly 
prove ultimately the best generic word for the civilisation 
as a whole, while Mycenaean and Minoan will fit into it, 
as representing certain stages of its development in 
different localities. For such a synthesis we are not 
yet ready, but we may infer that it is to something 
like this that Mr. Evans himself is looking forward. 
In the cases of his own Museum, the Ashmolean, at 
Oxford, he has only a few months ago divided his speci- 
mens of pottery from islands like Melos and Amorgos into 
nine epochs, and equated them, as Early, Middle, and 
Late "' Cycladic," with the nine Minoan epochs. 2 

Meanwhile thei-e may be pleaded for the term Minoan, 

1 The early sub-Neolithic periods are represented both at the 
Heraeum on the north-east of the plain of Argos, and on the 
hill called Aspis on its west (W. Yollgraff in B.C.H. 1906, 
pp. 1-34) ; but the Middle Minoan periods are almost unknown, 
except sporadically at Tiryns. See Ath. Mitt. 19x15, p. 151 seq. 
and J. L. Myres in Y.1V.C.S. 1907, p. 22. 

2 Cp. the interesting suggestion made by J. L. Myres in 
Y.W.C.S. 1907, p. 26, that it may be possible, with slight 
modifications, to equate Dr. Orsi's three " Sikel " periods with 
Early, Middle, and Late Minoan* 



JUSTIFICATION OF THE TERM MINOAN 43 

so long as we restrict it to the Civilisation of Crete, not 
only Mr. Evans's own fanciful play on the mysterious 
''' nine years " of Minos's kingship as we read of it in 
the Odyssey, 1 but the more significant fact of the common 
occurrence of Minoa as a place name. 2 The examples that 
we have already mentioned, the Antiochs and Seleucias 
and Caesareas, remind us how frequently a name is 
common to a dynasty when originally it is peculiar to an 
individual ; while the Alexandrias show that the founder 
of the dynasty may live centuries before the conqueror 
who founds the towns. In Aosta, Augsburg, 8 and their 
fellows, we have an example of place, names arising from 
what was never the ruler's personal name, but only his 
title. Although there is no evidence that the word 
Minos was a titular name such as Pharaoh in Egypt, 
it is at least a curious coincidence that the most chrono- 
logical of the Greek sources that hand it down to us 
suggests a dynasty rather than a single individual. The 
Parian Chronicle gives us one Minos in the fifteenth 
century B.C. of its y scheme of dating, and another in the 
thirteenth ; 4 and Diodorus 5 and Plutarch 6 tell a similar 
story. Though this tradition is unknown to our earliest 
Greek authorities 7 and is crude enough in the form 
in which it reaches us, the obscure genealogy of the 
Minoan house, with its blend of Pelasgian, Phoenician, 
and Doric elements, 8 suggests that the name may have 
had a long history. It should be remarked that not only 
have English archaeologists adopted Mr. Evans's system, 
but also the American excavators at Gournia, 9 and the 

1 E.C. p. 4 ; Od. xix. 178-9. 

2 See pp. 1 1-3. 

3 Augusta Practoria and Augusta Vindclicorum. 
* M.P. 11, 19; F. Jacoby, 1904. 

5 iv. 60. 6 Theseus, 20, Na£ta*a. 

7 Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus. Jacoby, M.P. p. 59, traces 
it back to Andron. E. Bcthe in H. xxiv. 1889, p. 416, is wrong 
in seeing it in the Platonic Dialogue, Minos, 318-20. 

8 See p. 204. 9 Miss Boyd in C.R.A.C. p. 226. 



44 EARLY MINOAN I 

Italian at Phcestos. 1 They at least have not felt that 
the word Minoan implies an unwarrantable thalassocracy 
of Knossos over the .Egean world ! However com- 
plicated the evidence may be — and it is one of the objects 
of the present book to explain it — no archaeologist can 
afford to ignore Mr. Evans's system and talk airily of 

Knossos I." ■ There is no such thing as Knossos I. 
It would be as sensible to talk of " Athens I.," or " Troy 
XXV." ! The Minoan classification may be modified.. 
or it may be opposed, but it must be grappled with. 
Those who ignore it will find that they have dropped 
behind. 

The first of the nine epochs thus designated as Minoan 
immediately succeeds the Neolithic Age. Its deposit 
reaches to a depth of 17 feet below the surface of the 
soil, while below it the Neolithic remains are found, at 
one testing-point to a farther depth of nearly 21 feet, 
at another to one of 26 feet. 5 Mr. Evans seeks to 
fix its date by certain connections that its remains show 
with those of early Egypt. The black hand-burnished 
ware that it has inherited from the latest Neolithic Age 
is stated by Professor Petrie to be " indistinguishable in 
colour, burnish, and general appearance " from certain 
vases which he has found in 1st Dvnastv tombs at 

J 

Abydos ; and he suggests that this pottery is un- 
Egyptian in character and may have been imported 
from Crete. 4 Further a Syenite vase and Liparite 
and Diorite bowls found in the Palace of Knossos, 
if not actually importations from Egypt, are certainly 
based on Egyptian models of a very early period, and 
are used by Mr. Evans to connect Early Minoan I. with 

1 Halbherr in Rend. xiv. 1905, pp. 374, 393. 

2 E.g. in the last published number of Ath. Mitt. (xxx:. 
1906, p. 364) some vase fragments axe said to be like M Troja II. 
and Knossos I." 

3 B.5.A. x. p. 25. 

* Ibid. p. 25. See Petrie, M.A.A. 1904, ng. 64, p. 166. 



EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 45 

the first Four Dynasties. 1 It must be noticed, however, 
that, so far as can be judged from the published evidence, 
these three vessels do not seem to have been found in 
Early Minoan deposit at all. The Syenite vase was 
discovered in 1900 somewhere near the Court of the Altar 
in the south-west of the Palace. At that time it was not 
regarded as of importance, and we are given no exact 
details as to the objects with which it was found ; but in 
1903, when it was first published, it was quoted by Mr. 
Evans to illustrate the contents of a pit near the East 
Pillar Room. 8 This deposit was placed by him the next 
year no earlier than Early Minoan III., 8 and was shifted 
by Mr. Mackenzie in 1906 to Middle Minoan I. 4 The 
Diorite bowl was found in 1902 " among some debris 
from the south wall " of a store closet that contained a 
number of vases of Middle Minoan III., 6 and although 
it may be earlier than the contents of the room, the 
interval of time need not be a great one. The Liparite 
bowl, again, was only found the same year in " disturbed 
earth " on the east slope, near some store-rooms con- 
taining Middle Minoan pottery. 8 

It is not certain, too, that the shapes of these Egyptian 
vases did not survive in Egypt for a long period after 
their first invention/ and even if these particular examples 
could be proved to be among the first examples of their 
style, there is always the baffling possibility that objects 
of such hard material would not break easily, and might 
long survive as heirlooms. It is significant in this con- 
nection that certain examples of Egyptian stonework, 
in particular a small Diorite bowl, 8 which have quite as 
good a right to be dated from the first Four Dynasties 

» E.C. p. 5. 

2 B.S.A. ix. figs. 67a, 67b, p. 98, figs. 65, 66, pp. 95, 96. 

3 Ibid. x. p. 20. * J.H.S. xxvi. p. 252. See below, pp. 51, 58. 
6 B.S.A. viii. fig. 73, p. 122, figs. 49, 50. PP> 8 8, 89. 

6 Ibid. fig. 74, p. 123. 7 P.T. pp. 147-9, J 65. 

8 Ibid. fig. 128, p. 151. 



46 EARLY MINOAN I 

as the three we have been discussing, were found by Mr. 
Evans as part of the first interment at the Royal Tomb 
at Isopata. In this case he is content to fall back on a 
theory of heirlooms, or of later Cretan copies, and does 
not use them to prove an earlier date than Middle Minoan 
III. 1 Although, of course, it is quite possible that in 
point of fact the vases were early in one case and late in 
the other, it is clear that they cannot be used at will to 
prove the two dates, but must be judged, within certain 
limits, according to the objects with which they are found. 
The uncertainty which involves the dating of these 
importations from Egypt, and the fact that even the 
Abydos vases may be connected with the Latest Neolithic 
period as well as with Early Minoan I., suggests that as yet 
it is not safe to involve the beginnings of the Minoan 
periods in Egyptian chronology. The confusion, indeed, 
which surrounds that chronology in its early stages, and 
the growing divergencies in the various systems of dates, 
would rob such equations, however well established, of 
any objective value. In provisionally accepting Lepsius's 
date of 3892 B.C. for the 1st Dynasty, 8 Mr. Evans was 
probably influenced by a desire to strike a mean between 
the 3315 of Meyer, and Pe trie's first date of 4777. Now 
that Petrie, however, as will be explained later, has 
receded to 5510 for the 1st Dynasty and 4731 for the 
IVth, 3 Mr. Evans will, we expect, prefer that the 
beginning of his nine periods should be placed roughly 
in the Fourth Millennium, as a reasonable, though only 
probable date on its own merits, rather than that it should 
shift with each new speculative interpretation of the first 
torn fragments of the Turin Papyrus.* 

1 P.T. pp. 165, 166, 170. * B.S.A. x. p. 25. 

3 Sinai, 1906, p. 175. See Chapter V. below. 

4 We do not yet possess astronomical evidence affecting the 
dating of the earliest Dynasties, and Lepsius's date for the 1st 
Dynasty might be held by one who accepted the Berlin astro- 
nomy for the Xllth. See Chapter V. For a later dating, see 
R. B. Seager, T.D.A.P. i. Part 3, pp. 213-21. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF PAINTING 47 

If we thus allow about 3 feet of deposit for every 
millennium, we get a great age for the Neolithic strata 
that are below. Progress moves slowly in the dim early 
periods, and we need not shrink from the dat£s of 10,000 
or 12,000 B.C. which are thus given to the first settlement 
of man upon the hill at Knossos. 

The black hand-burnished ware, or " Bucchero " that 
it had inherited from Neolithic times is not what is most 
characteristic of Early Minoan I. What differentiates 
it is the use of paint to produce colour effects. 1 The 
Neolithic artist's device for securing a coloured design 
was to make incisions in the surface of his hand-polished 
ware, so as to make a pattern of zig-zags or triangles 
and then fill them up with white powdered gypsum. 
This is the so-called " incised " or " incrusted " pottery 
which is found, not only in Crete and Egypt, 2 but, 
in still greater quantities, over a wide area of Central 
Europe, from Southern Russia to the western borders of 
Austria. 8 It was the achievement of the Early Minoan 
Age to produce, by painting on the flat, the geometric 
effects that hitherto had been produced by the white 
filling, and it is possible that the very pigment used was 
the same white gypsum treated differently. 4 The inven- 
tion once made, there were rapid developments. A 
lustrous black glaze was spread as a slip over the surface 
of the clay to imitate the old dark hand-polished surface, 
so that the lustreless white patterns over it gave the 
effect of the best old incrusted ware ; 5 and the black 

1 E.C. p. 5 ; Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxvi. p. 244. 

2 Petrie, M.A.A. 1904, fig. 61, p. 161. 

3 Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxiii. p. 159 ; M. Wosinsky, Lengyel, 
1888-91, and I.K. 1904 ; H. Schmidt in Z. f. Ethnol. 1903, 
pp. 438-69, 1904, pp. 608-56, 1905, pp. 91-113 ; H. Wilke in ibid. 
1906, pp. 1-33 ; M. Hoernes, N.K.O. 1905, especially pp. 36-9, 
where there is a criticism of Wosinsky that is amply justified ; 
Von Stern, P.K.S.R. 1905. See below, Chap. XI. 

4 J.H.S. xxiii. p. 162. 

8 Hogarth and Welch in J.H.S. xxi. ; cp. fig. 30, p. 96, with 
ng. 3i> P-97- 



48 EARLY MINOAN II 

glaze, once discovered, was seen itself to have possibilities 
as decoration, and was in other vases laid on in black 
bands on the natural light buff of the clay. 1 

Thus, from the very first use of paint for Minoan 
fabrics, a dark design on a light ground is seen side by 
side with a light design on a dark. Although, in the 
different stages of the later development of Minoan art, 
first one and then the other of these two principles is 
dominant, and for a time the polychrome style combines 
the special characteristics of both, yet at no stage does 
either wholly disappear till the last days of the Palace 
of Knossos. Dr. Mackenzie, indeed, the chief authority 
on Early Cretan pottery, suggests that even then, in Late 
Minoan I. and II., the principle of the light design on 
the dark ground may only have been latent, as in some 
long Katavothra of fashion. The competition, in the 
Attic workshops of the end of the sixth century, of the 
black-figured and the red-figured style, may be due, not 
to accident or re-invention, but to a survival of the 
two old co-existent principles. 2 The beautiful poly- 
chrome Lecythi of Attic art may represent a similar 
survival of the Kamares technique of Middle Minoan II. 
Evidence is accumulating, from Naukratis, Rhodes, 
the Polledrara estate at Vulci, and, still nearer Athens, 
at Eleusis, 3 that seventh and sixth century Ionia had 
already revived the polychrome principle, and had 
inspired more than one local centre to apply it in new 
and fascinating ways. This silent lingering of tradition, 
among humbler folk perhaps, is also illustrated by 
the Geometric ornament of these Neolithic and Early 
Minoan vases, which comes to the front again in the 
so-called Geometric Age, when the great artistic periods 

1 Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxiii. p. 165. 

2 Ibid., p. 202. 

3 See the interesting articles by Cecil Smith in J.H.S. xiv. 
pp. 206-23, Plates VI*- VIII., and K. Rhomaios in Ath. Mitt. 
xxxi. 1906, pp. 186-204, Plate XVII. 



THE CONTINUITY OF MINOAN ART 49 

are over. 1 Just so, at Phaestos, we have rough polygonal 
or " Cyclopean " building, both before and after the 
finest work. 2 

The vases of Mr. Evans's next stage, Early Minoan II., 
are marked by a greater freedom of design and variety 
of shape. Simple curves are seen for the first time as 
well as straight lines, and vas v es with long horizontal 
spouts or " beaks " come into fashion, the " Schnabel- 
kannen " of German archaeologists. 8 At Vasiliki, near 
Gournia, and to a less extent at Palaikastro, we find a 
distinctive red and black mottled ware. In the view of 
Mr. R. B. Seager, 4 who conducted the excavations at 
Vasiliki, the effect is produced by the vase being coated 
with red paint, and then fired in a bed of coals in such 
a way that live coals actually touched the surface at 
various points, and burnt black patches on the red. 
At Gournia itself and other sites there is a curious piece 
of " archaism," which persists even in the next period ; a 
revival of the old incised ware that had been supplanted 
by its painted rival. 5 Such vases are found in the round 
vaulted Tholos of Hagia Triada, 6 along with very short 
triangular dagger-blades of copper, 7 an early type of 
seal of a cone or cylinder shape, 8 and tiny representations 
of the human figure in alabaster or steatite, of a type 

1 So C. C. Edgar in Phylakopi, p. 106. The differences between 
the two Geometric styles noticed by W. Vollgraff in B.C.H. 1906, 
p. 29, do not invalidate the argument, in spite of J. L. Myres's 
remarks in Y.W.C.S. 1907, pp. 23-4. 

2 Cp. Mon. Ant. xiv. 1905, fig. 40, p. 414 (so B.S.A. ix. p. 17 
for Knossos), with ibid. fig. 15, p. 353. 3 E.C. p. 6. 

4 T.D.A.P. i. Part 3, pp. 213-21 ; see Dawkins, B.S.A. xi. pp. 
272-4. For a discussion of the method of producing the black 
hand-polished surface of the vases of the preceding periods see 
Myres in J.A.I, xxxiii. p. 368-71. 

5 E.C. p. 6 ; Miss Boyd in C.R.A .C. p. 226. 

6 Halbherr in M.I.L. xxi. 5, Plate IX. fig. 21. See above, p. 29. 
1 M.I.L. Plate X. fig. 24. 

8 Ibid. figs. 25, 26 ; E.C. p. 6. 

4 



50 EARLY MINOAN III. 

even more primitive than the contemporary " Cycladic " 
idols of Amorgos. 1 

It is in Early Minoan III. that the Cyclades, whose 
culture seems up to this point to have been farther 
advanced than that of Crete, 2 first come into close con- 
nection with it. It is now for the first time that we meet 
in Crete that fiddle-shape conception of the human figure 
that we are so familiar with in the flat marble idols of 
Melos, 3 Par os, and Amorgos. The beginnings of the first 
city at Phylakopi are contemporary, and the second 
or " burnt " city of Troy, that Schliemann wrongly 
equated with the Homeric age, covers this period, though 
it begins earlier, and probably lasts longer. 4 Crete now 
takes its proper place as a half-way house between Egypt 
and the iEgean. The seals of the period show on them 
primitive pictographs that are certainly derived from the 
pictographs of the so-called button seals of Egypt. 6 
We cannot be sure, however, that this borrowing dates 
from the time of the Vlth Dynasty, when this type of 
seal was first common in Egypt ; and the difference 
between Petrie's new date of 4206 and Meyer's of 2540 6 
is so vast that even an exact equation would help us little 
in our Cretan chronology. As will be seen later, the 
question of the dating of the first four Minoan periods 
largely depends on the position that we assign to the 
bloom of Minoan art from Middle Minoan II. onwards. 
Apart from this, however, there is room for much differ- 
ence of opinion as to the length of time necessary for 
these periods of preparation. It may be taken as a safe 

1 M.I.L. xxi. 5, Plate XI. fig. 27, and p. 250. 

2 This is well shown in the Ashmolean cases. 

3 Bosanquet and Welch in Phylakopi, Plate XXXIX. and 
p. 194. 

4 Dawkins in B.S.A. x. p. 195, Tod in ibid. ix. p. 342 ; Mackenzie 
in Phylakopi, pp. 243-54. See above, p. 6 ; below, p. 200. 

5 E.C. p. 7 ; B.S.A. viii. p. 121. 

6 Sinai, 1906, p. 175 ; Meyer, A. P. A. 1904, p. 178. See below, 
Chapter V. 



SPIRALS AND STRAIGHT LINES 51 

general truth in the history of art that the rate of progress 
accelerates as the standard rises, and the question as to 
whether, with Mr. Evans, we end Early Minoan III. at 
B.C. 3000, ! or bring it several hundred years later, must 
in the present state of our knowledge mainly depend on 
our opinion of the artistic standard it represents. 

It is in this connection not easy to be sure how far 
certain of Mr. Evans's phrases about spirals alnd poly- 
chromy in his Essai de Classification 8 must be modified 
in the light of a subsequent article by Dr. Mackenzie. 3 
Dr. Mackenzie here gives his opinion that the beginnings 
of polychrome decoration, and the development of any- 
thing that has a right to be called a spiral system, cannot 
be assigned to a period earlier than Middle Minoan I. ; 
and we cannot fail to connect his statement with the 
fact that he assigns to that period 4 three important 
early deposits of the Palace of Knossos that were re- 
garded by Mr. Evans in 1904 as " the best evidence " 
for the culture of Early Minoan III. 6 It is difficult to 
find in the vases from Palaikastro 8 and Gournia that 
can safely be attributed to Early Minoan III. anything 
more than simple concentric circles, or a cable chain of 
half-circles. This is probably one of the ways in which 
the spiral idea arose, 7 but is itself only the spiral as a unit, 
and not the spiral as a chain. 8 The use, too, of red paint 
instead of, but not along with, black, on a light ground 

1 See the Wall Cases in the Ashmolean. Mr. Evans ends M.M. I. 
at B.C. 2500. The arguments of chapter v. would, if accepted, 
necessitate bringing this latter date at least two or three hundred 
years lower, if not to B.C. 2000. 

2 E.C. p. 6. 3 J.H.S. xxvi. pp. 244-6. 

* Ibid. p. 252. 6 B.S.A. x. p. 20. See below, p. 58. 

s Dawkins in B.S.A. x. fig. 2, p. 199, and p. 201, n. 1, and xi. 
fig. 5, p. 271 and pp. 273-4 ; Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxvi. p. 246, 
n. 3. 

7 So H. Wilke in Z. /. Ethnol. xxxviii. 1906, figs. 69, 70, p. 30. 

8 So Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxvi. p. 246, n. 3. See Plate VII. 
fig. 20, a M.M. I. example of the cable chain. 



52 MIDDLE MINOAN I 

in the later deposits of the Hagia Triada Tholos, 1 can 
hardly be what Mr. Evans meant by the <c beginnings 
of polychromy " ; and although the bulk of the deposit 
from Hagios Onuphrios may be placed here, a polychrome 
two-handled jar with red and white streaks on a dark 
ground must be regarded, as Mr. Evans himself says, 
as one of the latest objects in it, and probably belongs 
to the following period. 8 

These periods of course are of Mr. Evans's own creation. 
An attempt to fix their limits is not an argument against 
his conclusions, but an effort to interpret them in greater de- 
tail than he has yet had time to do. It is made legitimate 
— and also, it may be added, inevitable — by the fact that 
both he and Dr. Mackenzie have been generous enough 
to take the world into their confidence by publishing pro- 
visional classifications. In regard to more fundamental 
points, in which the foregoing account follows them, 
they have already been criticised by so eminent an 
authority on early art as Dr. Moriz Hoernes. Dr. 
Hoernes points out 3 that elsewhere incised decoration 
is often not an introduction to painting on the flat, but 
a later stage to it ; and he further maintains that in 
early art rectilinear decoration marks an advance on 
curvilinear, which, in the long ages before pottery was 
thought of, would be naturally associated with the 
fibrous baskets that served as vessels. The bearing of 
this argument on the Neolithic spirals of South Russia 
and Central Europe will be discussed later in the present 
book. 4 However true it may be, the fact remains that 
in the internal development of Minoan pottery painting 
on the flat is later than incision, and spirals later than 

1 M.I.L. xxi. 5, p. 250. Rend. xiv. p. 397. Halbherr does 
not state exact provenance. If the vase is from the adjoining 
chambers, it dates from M.M. I. See Mackenzie, J.H.S. xxvi. 
p. 249. 

2 J.H.S. xiv. p. 325 ; E.C. p. 6. See below, p. 76. 

3 N.K.O. 1905, pp. n, note 1, and 125. 4 Chapter XI. 



NATURALISM AND POLYCHROMY 53 

straight lines. The revival of incised ware at Knossos 
in Early Minoan II. and III. is the only feature in the 
situation which shows that progress was not always 
in the one direction. 

So far, then, if we are right in assuming that Mr. Evans 
agrees with his lieutenant, we have only got a short way 
beyond barbarous art. The beginnings of pictographic 
signs alone place Crete above the neighbouring ^Egean 
settlements. It is in the next period, Middle Minoan I., 
that the great advance is made, and that not only in the 
pictographic script. 1 The remarkable clay figurines of 
female figures found by Mr. J. L. Myres on the peak of 
Petsofa, above Palaikastro, with their open corsage, wide 
standing collars, high shoe-horn hats, elaborate crinolines, 
and their general impression of an inaccurate attempt 
at representing Queen Elizabeth, have the ground colour 
of their clay painted over with a colour scheme of black 
and white, red and orange. 2 At Knossos, too, side by 
side with monochrome vases, with their design painted 
in lustrous black varnish on a bluff clay slip, we find 
lustreless polychrome decoration in white, yellow, orange, 
red, and crimson, on a lustrous black varnish ground. 3 

It may be noticed that not only is the Geometric 
decoration of these vases of an advanced type, with a 
developed spiral system, but there are interesting traces 
of a vigorous naturalistic spirit, which is startling in such 
company. A dark glaze design on a light ground gives 
us fragments of three Cretan wild goats, with curving 
horns, and behind them a beetle with a tail. The goats 
are in silhouette with incised outline, in the manner of 
early classical black-figured vases, while the beetle is drawn 
freely without outline. 4 The fragments are unfortunately 

1 E.C. p. 7. 

2 B.S.A. ix. Plate VIII. ; sec also the male figure, Plate IX. 
and pp. 356-87. 

3 B.S.A. xi. Plate I. ; J.H.S. xxvi. Plates VII., IX., X., XI. 

4 Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxvi. p. 247, and Plate IX. No. 3. 



54 MIDDLE MINOAN I. 

too scanty for us to get any idea of the part the 
beetle is meant to play in the procession, and it is 
possible that a single vase is insufficient evidence for 
attributing naturalism to an age. That there was an 
interest in animal life at the time may be inferred from 
a curious black glaze vase with red and white stripes, 
the shape of which imitates the body, wings, and head 
of a dove, 1 in a spirit which is beyond the mere love of 
the ^grotesque shown in the corresponding ' ox " or 
" duck " vases of Phylakopi. 2 There is, however, to 
our knowledge, no such free painting either of plant or 
animal life in Crete till Middle Minoan III. ; while even 
here animal life seems to have been reserved for frescoes 
and porcelain. The nearest things to it in early art are 
the Bull and the Dog on the Neolithic vases of Petreny 
in South Russia. 3 

Have we to do with the eccentricity of an individual 
artist ? Or will some yet undiscovered evidence justify 
the hypothesis that the conventional designs of the 
Kamares polychrome ware of Middle Minoan II. are a 
reaction from an all but lost naturalistic phase of the 
period that preceded them ? Was the " Palace Style ,: 
of Late Minoan II., following on the great naturalistic 
periods, 4 proof of a reaction that had already once taken 
place in the history of Cretan art ? 

1 Hogarth and Welch in J.H.S. xxi. fig. i, p. 79. 

2 Edgar in Phylakopi, pp. 88-92, figs. 74, 75, and Plate IV. 
Nos. 6, 7, 8. 

3 Von Stern, P.K.S.R. 1906. Plates VIII. 3 ; XI. 12b, wrongly 
numbered in the text -p. 66. 

4 See below, Chapter VI. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BUILDING OF THE PALACES, AND THE GREAT 
MIDDLE MINOAN PERIODS 

It will naturally be asked at this point whether we have 
yet reached any connected system of walls or floor levels. 
Are there traces of anything that we can call a palace 
connected with the remains of these first four periods ? 
Now it goes without saying that habitations of some 
kind or another do not constitute a palace. That there 
were habitations on the hill of Knossos, not only during 
these four epochs, but during the Neolithic Ag(e behind 
them, is certain from the existence of the remains them- 
selves. The character of the habitations is another 
matter, and it is probable that even the excavators 
themselves will need further testing and trial pits before 
they really make up their minds. Dr. Dorpfeld has 
recently l tried to draw far-reaching inferences from the 
character of the construction and ground plan as shown 
at different stages of the stratification ; but experienced 
archaeologist and practical architect as he is, he has 
been shown by Dr. Mackenzie 2 to have misunderstood 
the nature of the evidence. In view of his mistakes the 
following interpretation of the evidence as to the succes- 
sive buildings on the site is given with some diffidence. 

For the Neolithic period no houses, or remains of 
houses, have been discovered at Knossos, but the whole 
hill, like a " Tell " in Mesopotamia, is itself largely 

1 Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, pp. 257-97. 

2 B.S.A. xi. pp. 181-223. See below, Chap. V. 

55 



56 THE BUILDING OF THE PALACES 

composed of the thick deposit formed by many stages 
of Neolithic culture. The absence of traces of houses 
may of course be due to the fact that they were only 
wattle and daub huts, which have naturally decomposed 
into the pale clay in which the whole deposit is embedded ; 
but Mr. R. M. Dawkins's discovery on a high plateau 
near Palaikastro 1 of a house of undoubtedly Neolithic 
time with the bottom course of undressed limestone 
blocks still standing and forming a definite ground plan, 2 
suggests that further trial pits may unearth something 
similar at Knossos. The still more elaborate Stone Age 
hous'es discovered by Professor Tsountas at Dimini 
and Sesklo in South Thessaly, with their three-roomed 
system and traces of wooden pillars, 3 are too far away 
to be brought into this connection. 

From Early Minoan I. onwards, floor levels have been 
brought to light at various test points, as is clearly 
shown, for instance, by a Strata section representing the 
various pavements underlying the Western Court. 4 
It is not so easy to determine whether the various pits 
or basements that contain remains of the Early Minoan 
periods were themselves necessarily built before the 
time of the earliest pottery fragments that are found in 
them. If they are, we must, according to the latest 
classification in Mr. Evans's own yearly Reports, 5 assign 
to Early Minoan III. not only a small pit, 3 feet deep, 
under the paVement near the Pillar Rooms in the 
west of the Palace, 6 but also, what is more important, 
a basement with two Monolithic pillars of limestone on 
the south-east. 7 As there is no trace of a doorway to 
this chamber, it is probable that access to it was by a 
trap-door and ladder through an upper floor supported 

1 B.S.A. vi. p. 6. 2 Ibid. xi. pp. 260-8, fig. 2, p. 263. 

* C.R.A.C. 1905, p. 207. See below, pp. 168, 193. 

4 B.S.A. x. fig. 7, p. 19. 

B Ibid. p. 20. See, however, p. 58, n. 1, infra. 

6 Ibid. ix. pp. 94-8, fig. 66, p. 96. 7 Ibid. fig. 7, p. 18. 



N^ 



>s 



p^»«^^^^^^ SURFACE LEVEL 




PERIOD of PARTIAL OCCUPATION 
(LATE MINOAN III.) 



LATER PALACE II 
(LATE MINOAN Ull.) 



. .. .WALLED. * • '• 
'•."•:' PIT -* '•" .* • 



LATER PALACE I. 
KNOBBED PITH05 (MIDDLE MINOAN III.) 
iam: wometkes at base) 



;■ .-. • ;■•: ,'.".' '. ; ; , EARLIER PALACE 
- \- ', .WALLED .*■ • '-.' (MIDDLE MINOAN Ull.) 
: .V; "• PIT ;•-■. •"••• : V' 
(PRCBA3LY DESCENDS 7met»is) 
• '.EARTH FILLING • ■ '•_ 

'• J .- C > . •_-'■'■ ■■,■■':'. 



[<: I ME1RE >| 

Strata Section from Palace of Knossos 



PLATE III 



NO EARLY MINOAN PALACE AT KNOSSOS 57 

by the two pillars. Such a cellar was in the great 
Minoan periods common in the houses of well-to-do 
citizens, 1 and does not prove a palace. At so early 
a stage as this, however, it would probably point to an 
unusually elaborate building. That considerable build- 
ings, more than one story high, did exist at the time, is 
shown by Mr. Seager's excavations at Vasiliki, where 
the complex of more than twenty rooms, in which the 
Early Minoan II. mottled ware was found, belonged 
in all probability to a single house. 2 

On the other hand there was so much planing down 
of earlier strata on the hill of Knossos to secure good 
foundations for later building 5 that any pit or cellar 
no longer in use might well be made a dumping-ground 
for rubbish, some of which was not only older than 
the new building under construction, but older than the 
pit or cellar itself. Thus in one of the large deep-walled 
pits north-west of the Central Court there were found 
several pieces of Neolithic pottery. These strange 
25-feet-deep cells, 4 two of which are figured in our Strata 
section (Plate III.), beneath the flooring of the later 
Palace, are undoubtedly an integral part of an earlier 
Palace — perhaps, as Mr. Evans suggests, its dungeons. 
Up their slippery cemented sides no captive or " human 
tribute" from Megara or from Athens could hope to escape 
till he was called to take his turn in the boxing ring or 
the bull fight " to grace a Minoan holiday." Mr. Evans, 
however, does not conclude from the Neolithic potsherds 
that they were built in Neolithic or even in Early Minoan 
times, but rather that the potsherds " must have reached 
their positions through some later filling in." 6 Even, 
therefore, if some of the pottery in the basement of the 
Monolithic pillars is still held by Mr. Evans, as it was 

1 Bosanquct in B.S.A. viii. p. 306. 

2 T.D.A.P. i. 3, pp. 213-21. See above, pp. 24, 49. 

3 B.S.A. ix. p. 94, and D. Mackenzie in ibid. xi. p. 183. 

4 Ibid. vii. pp. 35, 36, ix. pp. 22-8, e Ibid. vii. p. 36. 



58 THE BUILDING OF THE PALACES 

in 1904, to belong to Early Minoan III., the evidence 
is not conclusive for the existence of a Palace on the hill 
at that date. It is probable, however, that recourse need 
not be made to the arguments just used, and that Mr. 
Evans may be taken as accepting l the modifications 
in the classification of Early and Middle Minoan pottery 
suggested by Dr. Mackenzie in 1906. a On this new 
classification the earliest deposit of the basement with 
the Monolithic pillars, and the little pit near the Pillar 
Rooms, would be assigned to Middle Minoan I. 

By this period, then, we may have at last reached the 
foundation of a Palace on the hill of Knossos, but we 
can tell little about its plan or structure, From the 
pits and the basement we can infer that the walls were 
of small rough masonry, 3 unlike the splendid and regular 
building of later days. 

At the end of the period there are signs of a general 
catastrophe, and with Middle Minoan II. there are un- 
doubted traces of what we may call the Early Palace. 
At Phaestos a considerable portion of the splendid 
Palace that we now see above-ground is shown by 
the evidence of vases to belong to this period. It is the 
opinion, not only of Dr. Dorpfeld, but of Mr. Evans, 
Dr. Mackenzie, and the Italian excavators themselves/ 
that the Theatral Area and West Court at Phaestds, 
and the one columned portico at their southern end, 5 
have no organic connection with the rest of the Palace. 
All of them, indeed, were covered over before the later 
building was erected. Now it is true that the Theatral 

1 See pp. 51, 53. E.C. p. 7, would apparently assign to a 
" Transition Period " between E.M. III. and M.M. I. pottery 
of this character. 

2 J.H.S. xxvi. pp. 244, 246, 252. 3 B.S.A. ix. p. 17. 
* Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, p. 264 ; B.S.A. xi. p. 185. 

5 Nos. 4, 1, and 3 on the Plan of the Palace of Phaestos, 
originally published in Mon. Ant. xiv. Plate XXVII. and repro- 
duced in Ath. Mitt. xxx. Plate X. and B.S.A. xi. Plate V. 
See below, p. 79, 



MIDDLE MINOAN II. PALACE AT PHAESTOS 59 

Area at Knossos does not stand in exactly the same 
relative position to the West Court as that of Phaestos ; 
but its West Court itself, the wall that bounds it on 
the side of the Palace, the one-columned portico at its 
southern end, and the paved ways that lead to it, are 
extraordinarily like these Middle Minoan II. remains at 
Phaestos. As it was certain, too, that at Knossos these 
buildings were not covered up in the days of the Later 
Palace, as they were at Phaestos, but formed an integral 
part of its West wing, it seemed probable at one time 
that we could date other elements also in this West wing 
as we now see it, to these early days. Experiment, how- 
ever, has shown that this hypothesis is wrong. Exca- 
vations made both under the pavement of the West 
Court and under the wall that bounds it on the Palace 
side, show fragments of pottery of the next period, 
Middle Minoan III. 1 The Middle Minoan III. pottery, 
too, that was discovered in the Northern Bath 2 does not 
prove, as Dr. Mackenzie seems inclined to suggest, 3 that 
the Bath was built before that period began. 

In the main, therefore, the architecture of the Middle 
Minoan II. Palace at Knossos has to be inferred from 
the contemporary glory of Phaestos. It is from the 
singularly rich floor deposits that occur in almost every 
quarter of the site that we infer that Knossos was at 
the time not inferior to its sister city. Vases now show 
the polychrome style predominant, and monochrome 
decoration is only used for common ware. Middle 
Minoan II. is the period of Kamares ware 4 in its most 
highly developed form, and the graceful decorative 
designs, egg-shell fabric, and delicate colouring of its 

1 B.S.A. x. pp. 14-8, fig. 7, p. 19, xi. pp. 20, 21. 

2 Ibid. vii. pp. 60, 61, fig. 18. 

3 Ibid. xi. p. 211. He says: "The conclusion is that the 
bathroom had ceased to be used at the period to which the 
pottery belongs, and that its actual construction went back to 
a somewhat earlier era." * See p. 24 



60 THE BUILDING OF THE PALACES 

bowls and '' tea-cups " 1 take us clear away from the 
region of what is merely primitive or curious, and show 
us what in any age would be considered beautiful. 

The extraordinary thinness of the walls of these 
vases, which reminds us of the finest china, or even 
of Venetian glass, suggests that they were copied from 
beaten originals of bronze or silver. Some of them 
have elements in their designs stamped out into low 
relief to represent the repousse ornament natural to such 
metal- work. 2 The colour effects, too, are so managed 
that they repeat the high points of light of their metal 
originals. The pigments used are rich and varied, and 
each colour is found in many tones. Black shades into 
purple, white into cream ; brown has sometimes a red 
and sometimes an olive tint ; yellows are either pale or 
orange ; and red is not only a crude vermilion, but is 
weakened to pink, or strengthened with shades of orange 
and cherry and terracotta. Light and dark grounds are 
used indiscriminately, and indeed there is such a blending 
of the two styles that on some of the vases it would be 
difficult to say whether the design was light on dark, or 
dark on light. 

In regard to the designs themselves there is less to say ; 
they are subordinate, as in some of the best mediaeval 
stained glass windows, to the general desire to produce 
a rich and harmonious colour effect. Patterns are largely 
geometric, with zig-zags, crosses, spirals, and concentric 
semicircles ; while large surfaces are covered with the 
plain dot, used with extraordinary skill. Designs from 
plant life are rare, and where they occur they are highly 
conventionalised. Art can hardly be for the first time 
coming into contact with nature, but is reacting in a 

1 B.S.A. viii., 1 90 1 -2, figs. 70, 71, p. 120. See also the 
beautiful reproductions in colour in J.H.S. xxiii. Plates V. and 
VI. and ibid. xxvi. Plate VIII. 

2 B.S.A. viii. p. 118 ; Hogarth and Welch in J.H.S. xxi. pp. 
81-3 ; Mackenzie in ibid, xxiii. pp. 172-4, xxvi. pp. 254-7. 



THE GREAT POLYCHROME PERIOD 61 

decorative, stylised mood from previous attempts to 
imitate her. 1 As will be seen shortly, when we come to 
Middle Minoan III., 2 the polychrome style of vase painting 
did not really lend itself to naturalistic treatment. It is 
interesting, however, to notice that the most beautiful 
of all the vases we have found has an elaborate water- 
lily design.* Plant form, if freely and boldly convention- 
alised, could be used then, as it has been in many arts 
since, to produce delightful decorative effects in any 
medium. The outside of the cup is enfolded by white 
petals, which, starting from a common centre at the 
base, and combining with narrow red lines and sections 
of the lustrous black of the ground, give a general im- 
pression of a light flower floating on the surface of a pool, 
though remote from the detail or colouring of nature. 
Nor is the effect spoilt by the complicated geometric 
design that runs above the petals on the rim of the cup, 
stamped out in low relief. 

Once again, as at the end of Middle Minoan I., there 
was a general catastrophe at Knossos. In more quarters 
than one a large number of vases of the be,st polychrome 
type are found lying together on a floor, in position and 
practically undamaged, with a considerable depth of 
earth between them and the Middle Minoan III. floors 
above them. 4 It was probably some way on in this 
Middle Minoan III. period that the main scheme of the 
Palace system, as we now see it, was conceived. Altera- 
tions and additions were made later. Although the West 
system in particular belongs as a whole to Middle Mi- 
noan III., not only was the pavement of the West Court 

1 See pp. 53-4. 2 See pp. 62-3. 

3 B.S.A. viii. fig. 71, p. 120 ; J.H.S., xxiii., Plate VI., No. 3. It 
is a cup (ibid. p. 173), though the handle is wanting and it looks, 
as figured, like a bowl. 

4 B.S.A. x. p. 16 ; so Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxvi. p. 256, but 
his language is more guarded than that which he used about the 
catastrophe at the end of M.M. I. on p. 253. 



62 THE BUILDING OF THE PALACES 

raised at a later date, but trial pits show that its area 
was considerably extended. 1 The Temple Repositories, 
too, west of the Central Court, and a number of apart- 
ments on its north-east side, were built in Middle Minoan 
III., but were completely covered in the next period. 2 
None the less we should not be wrong in believing that, 
although there was more magnificence in the later re- 
modellings, the Palace of Middle Minoan III. was as 
beautiful. Art is in the fascinating stage that im- 
mediately precedes full maturity. The Little Boy Blue 
who is gathering white crocuses in a field, and arranging 
them in a vase — for his flesh strangely enough is blue, 
and not the conventional reddish brown of all the Later 
Minoan frescoes 3 — is not an anatomically correct figure ; 
but there is a naturalism in the drawing of the flowers 
and a refinement in the idea that arrests attention. 
The best vases have a delicate lily design, white on a 
lilac or mauve ground ; 4 polychrome decoration is 
passing out of fashion. 

As Dr. Mackenzie cleverly points out, 5 this change 
from polychrome to monochrome is itself due to the 
naturalism of the period. The colour repertory of the 
vase painter was limited by the conditions of his art. 
Although the colours that were possible to him were 
enough to produce beautiful polychrome effects if they 
were used in the purely decorative designs of the Kamares 
type, they failed when they tried in the same way to 
reproduce natural objects, such as flowers. Green, for 
instance, which was essential for a naturalistic rendering 
of leaves and stems, was out of the range of the painter 

1 B.S.A. x. fig. 7, p. 19. See p. 6 for a M.M. III. " house " 
under the West Court. 

2 Including the Light Well that at the time of its discovery 
was called the North-East Hall, B.S.A. x. p. 13 ; Mackenzie in 
ibid. xi. p. 210, and J.H.S. xxvi. p. 265. 3 B.S.A. vi. p. 45. 

4 Ibid. viii. 1901-2, fig. 51, 7 and 10, p. 91 ; J.H.S. xxiii. fig. 8, 
Nos. 7 and 10, p. 189 ; and also B.S.A. x. 1903-4, fig. 1, p. 7, 
and fig. 2, p. 9. 5 J.H.S. xxvi. 1906, pp. 257, 258. 



THE NATURALISM OF MIDDLE MINOAN III. 63 

of vases. Thus, while the painter of wall frescoes revelled 
in his naturalistic greens and reds and yellows and blues, 
his brother of the vases, who had the same ideals and 
aspirations, was driven, by the very desire to express 
them, into a conventional monochrome. It was out 
of the question for him to give a polychrome, and so 
apparently naturalistic rendering of flowers, if he could 
not give the real colours of nature. The chefs d'ceiivre 
of polychromy, such as the water-lily cup, 1 seemed 
to him fanciful and arbitrary in their colouring, and 
offended his taste. If flowers were to be rendered at 
all, both they and all other natural objects would have 
to be treated with severe conventionalism, as light upon 
a dark ground, or dark upon a light. 

Our beautiful white-leaved, white-flowered lilies on 
the lilac ground prove, then, to be children of the natural- 
istic spirit. The same desire to imitate, and not merely 
to decorate, prompted the series of vases that imitate 
material other than their own. On certain vases from 
the Temple Repositories we see this imitative instinct 
both in the design, with its plump red birds, and in the 
material, the tightly drawn back mouth being reminiscent 
of the way a skin vessel has to be fastened to prevent 
wobbling and spilling. 2 These vessels, as the Phylakopi 
excavations show us, were importations from Melos, 
which from this period onward shows a peculiarly close 
contact with Knossos. 3 Knossos itself produced the 
serpentine vases that are made so as to represent plaited 
leather or basket-work/ and the huge knobbed and 
corded jars whose decoration imitates the ropes that 
had to be used to transport their heavy weight. 5 

On these pithoi, a fragment of one of which is shown 

1 See p. 61. 2 B.S.A. ix. fig. 26, p. 50. 

3 Phylakopi, Plate XXI. Nos. 1 to 5 ; Edgar, pp. 119, 120, 
135 ; Mackenzie, pp. 259-63. See above, p. 14; below, p. 85. 

4 B.S.A. vii. p. 66. 

5 Ibid. viii. fig. 5, p. 11, ix. p. 27, x. fig. 3, p. 12. 



64 THE BUILDING OF THE PALACES 

in position on a Middle Minoan III. floor in Plate III. 
of the present book, there are also traces of a strange 
" trickle " ornament, that originally sprang from an 
attempt to imitate nature in one of her least graceful 
aspects. 1 An artist had noticed that when a jar is used 
for pitch or treacle, the outside of it is apt to get smeared. 
It occurred to him to symbolise the unconscious design 
that resulted, or, if we prefer it, to divert attention from 
its unpleasantness, as a cloth is chosen for a literary 
writing-table whose pattern already suggests the wander- 
ing of ink. He dabbed brown glaze paint on the jar 
close to the rim, and allowed it to trickle undirected 
down the sides ! We cannot congratulate the good taste 
of Middle Minoan III. upon this piece of naturalism, even 
though it was sometimes rendered inconspicuous by 
knots and ropework. 2 

We are on the true level of the age again when we turn 
to the hoard of fine porcelain from the Temple Reposi- 
tories described at the beginning of the book ; the flying 
fish, the goat and her young, and the fern and roseleaf 
vase. 3 The most naturalistic gems are also to be placed 
here : wolves' heads, and owls, and trito'n shells, and 
animated scenes of the prize fight and the bull ring, and 
the boatman attacked by the sea monster. 4 Hiero- 
glyphic writing is at its best, and the first kind of linear 
signs, Class A, though apparently only just come into 
fashion, had made rapid progress. They could indeed 
be used so flexibly that we find inside two cups of the 
period an inscription written in ink, in a cursive hand. 
If we are to judge too from the fact that the lines of the 
letters show a tendency to divide, it was written with 

1 B.S.A. x. p. 10. 

2 Mackenzie inJ.H.S. xxvi. p. 264. See Plate XI. figs. 21-3. 
The idea may perhaps go back to a still earlier period. See 
B.S.A. ix. p. 120. 

3 B.S.A. ix. pp. 62-74. 

* Ibid. figs. 32-6, pp. 54-8. See above, p. 14. 



WRITING WITH INK AND PEN 65 

a reed pen. 1 What the medium was on which such pen 
and ink were ordinarily used, we cannot tell ; imported 
papyrus, or palm-leaves, perhaps, or even parchment. 
The invention, we may be sure, once made, was not 
confined to the inside of pottery. The king who built 
the stately Tomb 2 to rest in at Isopata, between the 
harbour and the town, on the hill that overlooked the 
sea, may have had his deeds recorded, not on clay tablets, 
but on something more worthy of a literature. 

1 B.S.A. viii. fig. 66, p. 10S, ix. p. 17. Evans in 1903 placed 
them later, but see Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxvi. p. 266. They 
come from a deposit above the Basement of the Monolithic 
Pillars mentioned above, pp. 56-8. 

2 P.T. 1906. For plans of this Tomb, with its fore-hall and its 
vaulted inner chamber, see Plates XCIII. to XCVII. ; for the 
vaulting, fig. 145, p. 162 ; for view of it as excavated, Plate XCII. 
and fig. 121, p. 138 ; for the evidence on which it is assigned to 
M.M. III., pp. 164-71. 



CHAPTER V 

EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY AND THE DATE OF THE 
MIDDLE MINOAN PERIODS 

The high level of art and civilisation to which these two 
last Middle Minoan periods attain makes it a matter of 
vital interest that we should be able within reasonable 
limits to fix their date. We turn therefore with expecta- 
tion to a considerable number of links that seem to connect 
them with contemporary Egypt. Vases that are un- 
doubtedly of the Middle Minoan II. Kamares type, and 
imported from Crete to Egypt, 1 were found at the place 
now called Kahun, close to Senusert II/s pyramid at 
Illahun, due east of the Fayum ; and their discoverer, 
Professor Flinders Petrie, although doubtful at the first, 2 
has for many years assigned the deposits in which they 
were found to the time of the Xllth Dynasty to which 
Senusert II. belonged. 3 Mr. Evans accepts the syn- 
chronism, and assigns to Middle Minoan II. the picto- 
graphic Cretan seal stones that are certainly derived 
from Xllth Dynasty types. 4 He further assigns to the 
following Middle Minoan III. stratum B a small seated 

1 So not only Petrie, but von Bissing in S.H. pp. 20-7. 

2 K.G.H. 1890, p. 43. See Hall in J.H.S. xxv. p. 321. 

3 J.H.S. xi. p. 199, and M.A.A. 1904, p. 157., 

* E.C. p. 8 ; J.H.S. xiv. 1894, fig. 49, p. 327. See, however, 
below, p. 75. 

5 E.C. p. 9. The facts as to the stratum in which it was dis- 
covered are thus satisfactorily accounted for. Hall (O.C.G. p. 320) 
was right in doubting that it could be assigned, as it originally 
was, to the Kamares period. 

66 



THE XIIth DYNASTY 67 

figure of Diorite found 2\ feet below the pavement of 
the Central Court at Knossos. This figure, of which only 
the lower part is preserved, tells us, in the Egyptian 
inscription that is cut on it, of a private gentleman called 
Ab-nub-mes-wazet-user ; and his formidable name, so 
Egyptologists tell us, could only have been perpetrated 
about the time of the Xlllth Dynasty. x Still more definite 
is the discovery, in an early deposit near the Northern 
Bath, in company with the serpentine vases described 
above, 2 of the lid of an alabdstron with the cartouche of 
the Hyksos king Khyan. 3 It is thus certain that Middle 
Minoan III. did not end before the XVth Dynasty. 

At this point certainty ends. The XIIth, Xlllth, 
and XVth Dynasties alike are at the present moment 
enveloped in a controversy in which a thousand years are 
but as yesterday. The traditional dating, still followed 
by most English Egyptologists, connects the XIIth 
Dynasty with the centuries immediately surrounding 
B.C. 2500. There is thus ample space for the intervening 
Dynasties before the well-established beginning of the 
XVIIIth at about 1580. Professor Petrie, for instance, 
till a year ago, placed the XIIth Dynasty from 2778 to 
2565, and the Xlllth from 2565 to 21 12 ; 4 Mr. Evans, 
drawing his equations from the later side of such 
dating, places his Middle Minoan II. from 2500 to 
2200, and Middle Minoan III. from 2200 to 1800. 5 
Many of the leading German Egyptologists, how- 
ever, such as Erman, Mahler, 6 and Borchardt, 7 and 
historians of early civilisation like Eduard Meyer, 8 
argue for a date later by six or seven hundred years ; 

1 B.S.A. vi. p. 27. 

2 See p. 65. 

3 B.S.A. vii. fig. 20, p. 64, fig. 21, p. 65. 

4 Hist. i. 1902, pp. 147, 206. 5 See Ashmolean Cases. 

6 O.L.Z. viii. 1905, pp. 473-83> 535-41- 

7 Z. Aeg. S. xxvii. 1899, p. 99 seq., where the Kahun Papyrus 
was itself first fully published. 

8 A. P. A. 1904. The fullest discussion of the subject. 



68 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

Meyer, for instance, begins the Xllth Dynasty at 2000, 
and the XHIth at 1788. They are partly influenced by 
a priori considerations of the length of time necessary 
for the Middle Kingdom and Hyksos period, but mainly 
by the discovery at Kahun of a Xllth Dynasty Temple 
Book, in which a priest tells his subordinates that a 
rising of Sothis or Sirius will occur on the 16th day of 
Pharmouthi, the eighth calendar month, in the seventh 
year of Senusert III. This is the word we used to read 
as Usertesen, till it was suggested that the name of 
the goddess Usert was written but not pronounced 
first, and that the transposition to Senusert or Senwosret 
would bring the word into connection with the Sesostris 
of Herodotus. 1 The astronomical argument that is 
based on this new " Sothic rising " would not touch the 
well-authenticated date of the XVII Ith Dynasty, which 
would still begin at about B.C. 1580 ; it would merely 
pack very much closer all that intervenes between it and 
the Xllth, and thus significantly reduce the period of the 
bloom of Minoan art. 

The leading American Egyptologist, Professor J. H. 
Breasted, has accepted this new dating without qualifica- 
tion. 2 Professor von Bissing of Munich 3 and most 
members of the English school * are as yet inclined to 
hold their hands, and suggest that there must be some- 
thing wrong with the new astronomical arguments, 
though they do not commit themselves as to what it is. 
Professor Petrie, however, has taken the bull by the horns 
in the best Minoan manner. He accepts the astronomical 
principles propounded by the Berlin school, and agrees 
that we have a right to place the Xllth Dynasty at a 
particular point in a " Sothic cycle " of 1460 years. So 

1 Hall, O.C.G. p. 320. 

2 A.R. 1906, vol. i., p. 26 seq. 

3 In letter to me of January 1907, which he has kindly allowed 
me to make use of. 

4 E.g. Hall in C.R. xix. 1905, p. 82, n. 1. 



THE BERLIN ASTRONOMY 69 

far, however, from accepting the resultant Berlin date for 
it, he pushes the whole thing a cycle of 1460 years further 
back, and begins the Xllth Dynasty in 3459, the XHIth 
in 3246, and the XVth in 2533. * 

The differences in date are so vast, and the issues at 
stake so important for our conceptions of ^Egean civilisa- 
tion, that we must consider at some length what is to 
be our attitude to these conclusions. It is clear at the 
outset that we must keep distinct the three very different 
kinds of grounds on which we can test them. The validity 
of the astronomical arguments, and the length of time 
required for the) development of Egyptian art and history, 
are quite different things ; while the length of time 
necessary for the development of Minoan art, which is 
the only kind of Minoan history that we can yet judge 

1 Sinai, 1906, pp. 163-75. It is difficult to know what to 
make of some of Petrie's statements either here or in his earlier 
discussion of the Sothic question in Hist. i. 1903, pp. 248-52. 
When for instance our MSS. of Censorinus give Thoth I as = VII 
Kal. Jul. = June 25 (Julian) in the year he is writing, a.d. 238, 
and deduce from it Thoth I as = XII Kal. Aug. = July 21 
(Julian) for a.d. 139, Scaliger (Cholodniak, 1889, notes p. 75) 
conjectures XIII Kal. Aug., because by the dates given in the 
Ptolemaic Almagest Thoth I must have fallen in 139 a.d. on 
July 20 (Julian). The Germans all accept this conjecture. Petrie, 
however, in both books keeps July 21. Has he tacitly accepted 
Oppolzer's (S.S.A. 1885, pp. 16-7) ingenious defence of the text ? 
On this view the Egyptian day began at sunrise, and thus over- 
lapped two Roman days, which, like ours, began at midnight. 
Thus the rising of Sirius, occurring as it did just before sunrise, 
in the last few minutes of Thoth I, might be counted in July 21, 
as well as in July 20. Or is Petrie's July 21 an accident ? On 
what principle, again, does he call a.d. 238, a.d. 239? He ignores, 
too, the further question, raised by the Germans, as to whether 
July 19 of a.d. 140 is not the date that Censorinus really ought 
to have given. The Kahun Inscription again, according to 
Borchardt's reading, makes Sirius rise on the 16th of Pharmouthi. 
Petrie, however, says the 17th. Is this a new reading of the 
text, or has his eye hit on the later entry in which the offerings 
given on the feast are entered on the next day ? 



70 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

by, is a thing different from either, and must stand on its 
own merits. Into the validity of the Berlin astronomy 
we cannot go at length, although we have tried in an 
Appendix * to explain in untechnical language the theory 
of the Egyptian calendar that it assumes. It may be 
pointed out, however, that the three German scholars we 
have quoted have gone independently into the details 
of the calculation and differ slightly from each other 
as to the exact year fixed by the Kahun Temple Book ; 
Borchardt makes it six years later than Meyer, and 
Mahler three years later. The very fact, however, that 
these independent calculations show such a slight difference 
makes it probable that the results are correct for the 
purpose of our argument, so long as it is admitted that 
the Egyptian calendar was never readjusted during 
each or any " Sothic cycle " of 1460 years. 2 This is 
the one disturbing factor which would introduce a margin 
of error sufficiently large to vitiate the whole argument. 
We have, however, no hint of such a thing in the Egyptian 
records ; and it must be remembered that the numerous 
recorded eclipses of Greek and Roman times that are 
dated by the Egyptian calendar year, all work out on 
the hypothesis that no readjustment existed. 

We turn, then, to our second test. How far does the 
Berlin dating fit in with the facts of Egyptian history 
so far as We know them ? Does it fit them better or worse 
than the old traditional dating, or the counsel of despair 
of Petrie's Sinai ? The differences, and they are sufficiently 
huge, lie in the length of time allowed from the beginning 
of the XHIth to the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty, 
which is 208 years on one dating, 985 on another, 
1666 on the third. Do we really know so little about 

1 See pp. 221-6. 

2 As suggested by T. Nicklin in C.R. xiv. 1900, pp. 144-8. 
See further Appendix A, which discusses the question as to 
the latitude at which the observations of " Sothic Risings " were 
taken. This difficulty, which is not as serious as it appears, was 
raised by C. Torr in M.M. and C.R. 1897, pp. 78-80. 



THE GREAT GAP IN EGYPTIAN HISTORY 71 

the events that happened during these Dynasties that 
it can be a matter of discussion as to whether 208 years 
or 1666 is the proper time to allow for them ? It is of 
course true that in prehistoric times, and in the absence 
of written records, such ignorance might be expected. 
In Egypt, however, the period could not fairly be called 
prehistoric, and we possess written records. Not only 
have we numerous monuments, but also the so-called 
Turin Papyrus, a Book of Kings written in the XVIIIth 
Dynasty, whose fragments, wherever we can rely with 
safety on their order and meaning, offer us valuable 
evidence. The strange thing about this great gap in 
Egyptian history is that not only is a great deal known 
about the period that comes after it, but a great deal also 
about the period that precedes it. It is not merely that 
the fragments of the Turin Papyrus happen to be better 
preserved for the Xllth Dynasty than for those that 
come after it, but that the monuments tell us volumes 
about the Xllth Dynasty, and little or nothing about all 
that comes between it and the XVIIIth. It is significant 
that Petrie agrees with Meyer, not only in the date at 
which he begins the XVIIIth Dynasty, but in the 160 
and 213 years that he assigns to the Xlth and Xllth. 1 

When we discover, therefore, that hardly anything is 
known about the gap, that it has practically no " content/* 
our first impression is that it cannot be a long one. None 
the less it would be at once granted by any candid friend 
of the Berlin dating that the 208 years it assigns to 
it are a surprisingly small number, and form a minimum 
lower than that which any a priori theory would have 
dared to suggest. We have to fit into it the whole 
period of foreign domination, the dark days of the " Shep- 
herd " or " Hyksos " kings, that were to the imagina- 
tion of later Egypt what the Babylonian Captivity 

1 Petrie, Hist. vol. i. 1903, pp. 124, 147, 251 ; Sinai, 1906, 
p. 175 : Meyer, A. P. A. 1904, p. 68, etc. ; Breasted, Hist. 1906, 
P- 599- 



72 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

was to the Jews, or the Danish Terror to early England. 
Over and above, too, these Hyksos invaders, the Turin 
Papyrus, whose opinion weighs as much with the Berlin 
school as with Petrie, 1 gives us the names of well over a 
hundred native Egyptian kings. 2 One of the Hyksos 
kings, an Apophis, has his thirty-third year mentioned on 
a mathematical papyrus now at the British Museum, and 
other totals known from monuments leave a perilously 
small margin for the remainder. 3 Their enemies believe 
that the Berlin school lives on a volcano, and that the 
discovery of new kings, such as those made by M. Legrain 
at Karnak, 4 may any day blow them into space. The 
epitomes, too, that we possess of Manetho, an Egyptian 
priest who wrote his history in the time of the Ptolemies, 
are dead against the Berlin view, and give totals that are 
nearly as long as those of Petrie' s new dating. On the 
other side it is urged that, where we can test him, 
Manetho is frequently, or, according to Breasted, " in 
the vast majority of cases," 5 proved to be wrong ; even 
for the XlXth Dynasty, for instance, which was much 
nearer his own time, his totals have admittedly been 
proved too high. 6 Manetho, it is argued, merely found 
the names of a vast number of kings, and assigned them 
reigns of a priori average length, ignoring the peculiar 
conditions of the time. The time was one of chaos, 
when Pretender after Pretender struggled for supremacy, 
and foreign usurpers were faced by mushroom native 
dynasties ; an anarchy like that which followed in the 
Roman Empire on the death of Commodus, or the 118 
years of later Egyptian history from 750 to 868 a.d., in 
which there were jy Moslem Viceroys. 7 

1 Meyer, op. cit. p. 109, n. 2 ; Breasted, A.R. vol. i. 1906, 
p. 38, etc. 

2 Petrie, Sinai, p. 167. 

3 Breasted, Hist. pp. 221, 212. 

* S.A.E. vi. 2, 1905, pp. 130-6. 5 Hist. p. 23. 

6 Petrie, Sinai, pp. 17 1-3. 

7 Breasted, Hist. p. 214. 



THE GREAT GAP IN EGYPTIAN HISTORY 73 

The historical strength of the Berlin position lies in the 
fact that this is probably true, so far as our evidence can 
guide us. A Theban king of the XVI Ith Dynasty seems 
to have been a vassal of one of the Hyksos kings, an 
Apophis ; * another Theban king uses language that 
seems to imply that there were other partial or competing 
kings in Egypt by his side. 3 When the Turin Papyrus 
gives us the length of the reign of one of its many kings 
it is, according to Breasted, occasionally two or three 
years, generally only a year, once no more than two 
months and a few days. 3 Its general method, too, 
was to give kings the gross length of their reigns when 
they were individually mentioned, whether or no they 
overlapped or were contemporary. The individual 
figures for the XI Ith Dynasty, for which it is entirely 
preserved, come to 228 years, but the grand total that 
it itself gives is only 213. * If we had its grand total 
for the great gap, we might here too have a shrinkage, 
and on a much more extensive scale. This line of argu- 
ment fits in with the general fact already mentioned, 
that there are practically no events to insert as happening 
in the great gap, while we know a great deal of the periods 
on either side of it. Breasted remarks of Petrie's new 
dating that " it involves the assumption that nearly 
1500 years of history have been enacted in the Nile valley 
without leaving a trace behind. It is like imagining that 
in European history we could insert at will a period equal 
to that of the fall of Rome to the present." 5 

When we turn, again, to Egyptian art, these general 
historical considerations receive considerable support. 
Several years before the discovery of the Kahun Papyrus, 

1 Breasted, Hist. p. 221 ; Petrie, Hist. ii. 1904, pp. 17-9. 

2 The original document in Breasted, A.R. vol. i. No. 779, 
hardly warrants the definite statement of ibid. Hist. p. 212. 

3 Ibid. Hist. p. 213. But cp. Petrie, Hist. i. pp. 202, 206, 227. 

4 Breasted, A.R. vol. i. p. 42 ; Petrie, Hist. i. p. 147. 

5 A.R. vol. i. p. $6, n. a. 



74 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

Mr. Henry Wallis, an authority on the Pottery of the 
Italian Renaissance, 1 who came to the study of Egyptian 
art from the purely artistic standpoint, pointed out 2 
that much too much time was demanded on the traditional 
dating from the point of view of artistic development. 
He found no indication m the art of the Xllth and the 
art df the XVHIth Dynasty that the^re had been a long 
process of development between them ; nor did he believe 
that the absence of development could be explained away 
by the theory of intervening centuries of barbarism. 
He argued that when Egypt did in fact become barbarous 
at the end of the Roman period, its art became barbarous 
also ; and that whenever, in such cases, a renascence 
follows a dark age, it comes into being gradually, from 
the seeds of the old skill and culture that lie dormant 
in the original population. It does not burst forth full 
blown, exactly on the same level as that on which it 
stopped centuries before. 

Whether or no other art critics will agree with Mr. 
Wallis' s remarks so far as they apply to work which is 
undoubtedly Xlth or Xllth Dynasty, such as the Temple 
of the Xlth Dynasty Mentuhetep III. at Deir-el-Bahari, 3 
it certainly applies to much of the Egyptian art that is 
generally associated with the Xllth and XHIth Dynasty, 
and especially to that part of it which is equated with 
Minoan remains and is of importance in the present 
discussion. Professor von Bissing, one of the leading 
living authorities on the subject, believes that much that 
has been hitherto loosely called Xlllth or even Xllth 
Dynasty work can in reality only be safely dated 
as " Middle Kingdom," and may belong to the XVth 
or even the XVIIth Dynasty. The obscurity of the 
great gap has meant ignorance as to the character 
of its art, and as to how far Xllth Dynasty types 

1 Italian Ceramic Art, 1902, etc. 

2 A.A.E. 1895, PP* xv-xvii. 

3 H. R. Hall in J.H.S. xxv. pp. 331-7. 



DATE OF THE HAGIOS ONUPHRIOS SEALS 75 

survived in it. He believes, for instance, that the 
Diorite statue found under the Central Court at Knossos 
and placed by Mr. Evans in Middle Minoan III. need 
not be contrasted with the Cartouche of King Khyan as 
Xlllth with XVth Dynasty work, 1 but may itself be 
XVth or later. Though, too, he agrees with Petrie that 
the pottery found at Kahun is imported Kamares ware, 
he maintains even more strongly than he did seven 
years ago 2 that the environment in which it was found 
may be and probably is much later than the Xllth 
Dynasty ; the pottery in particular with which it is 
associated he now definitely places under the Hyksos 
domination. In regard to the pictographic seal stones 
that Mr. Evans equates with the Xllth Dynasty, he 
holds that, although they cannot be earlier, they may 
well be later. 

It is conceivable that we have here found a point 
where Cretan evidence may legitimately be used 3 against 
the Berlin dating of the Xllth Dynasty, so long as, 
with von Bissing, we dissociate from it Middle Minoan II. 
and III. and place the latter nearer the XVIIIth Dynasty 
than the Xllth. It has already been felt to be a difficulty 
in Mr. Evans's scheme 4 that some of the Cretan seals 
that are most distinctively of this pictographic type 
are not found with Kamares pottery or any other re- 
mains of the great polychrome period, but form part of 
the deposit of Hagios Onuphrios, the bulk of which, 
with its high-spouted vases and rude idols, is naturally 
classed by Mr. Evans as Early Minoan III. 5 A vase 
with red and white streaks on a dark ground belongs 

1 See p. 6y: 

2 S.H. 1900, pp. 20-7. His later views were given to me in 
two letters dated January 1907, which he has kindly permitted 
me to make use of. 

3 So far as I am aware, this has not yet been done, though the 
argument is a direct inference from Von Bissing's position. 

4 By H. R. Hall in J.H.S. xxv. p. 321, note 2. 

5 E.C. p. 6 ; J.H.S. xiv. pp. 325-7. 



y6 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

to a slightly later interment, that may be assigned to 
the beginning of Middle Minoan I., 1 but it is highly im- 
probable that the seals and nothing else must be as- 
signed to the still later Kamares period. If we accept 
the Berlin dating, this is the only explanation, as it would 
be scarcely possible to maintain that Middle Minoan I. 
was only beginning in B.C. 2000. On Mr. Evans's 
scheme we are on the horns of a dilemma ; for the only 
other alternative is that within a mile of the splendid 
porticos that were rising on the west facade of Phsestos 
there lived a community that was still in a state of 
civilisation centuries and centuries behind. On Von 
Bissing's theory the seal stones of the Hagios Onuphrios 
deposit may happen to be real Xllth Dynasty work, 
while the links that connect Egypt with Middle Minoan II. 
and III. may be assigned to the four or five centuries 
that immediately precede the beginning of the XVII Ith 
Dynasty. 

Apart from this special question of the Hagios Onu- 
phrios deposit, Von Bissing's suggestions, placing Middle 
Minoan III. as they do nearer to the XVIIIth Dynasty 
than the Xllth, are of little importance if we accept 
the Berlin dating, where the whole gap between them 
is only 208 years ; they are of vital importance to those 
who cling to the old dating ; and they are a haven 
of safety for those who agree with Professor Petrie in 
accepting the Berlin astronomy and rejecting the Berlin 
history, but yet cannot follow him in placing an interval 
of fifteen hundred years between the art of Middle 
Minoan III. and that of the " Palace Style " of Late 
Minoan II. They may allow themselves without fear of 
heresy to notice how similar in glaze and technique and 
sometimes even colouring is the pale green porcelain of 
the Middle Minoan III. Temple repositories 2 to some of 

1 See p. 52. 

2 B.S.A. ix. Plate III. and figs. 51 to 53b, pp. 73, 74. 
See p. 20. 



MINOAN AND EGYPTIAN ART yy 

the faience that we find in XVIIIth Dynasty Egypt, not 
only in the Deir-el-Bahari of Thothmes III., but even 
the Tell-el-Amarna of Amenophis III. and Akhenaten. 1 
They may allow the glazed bowls of the XVIIIth and even 
the XlXth Dynasty, in which an open lotus enfolds the 
whole outside of the bowl with petals that spread from 
their common centre at the base, 2 to suggest to them that 
some direct ancestor of theirs, separated by no gulf of two 
thousand years, inspired the Cretan artist whose water-lily 
cup is the chef d'ceuvre of the Kamares period. 3 They 
may admire the naturalistic treatment of plant life as 
we see it on the early XVIIIth Dynasty glazed ware 
found by Petrie at Serabit, 4 and venture to connect it, 
not only with the reed and grass designs of Late Minoan I., 5 
but with something that is still more similar, the vine 
and willow of the porcelain plaques discovered in 1902. 6 
Yet these clearly belong to the same factory as the 
Middle Minoan III. porcelain that was unearthed in the 
Temple Repositories the following year. 

We have now reached our final point, the time needed 
for the development of Cretan art on its own merits. It 
is here somewhat surprising to find Professor Petrie claim- 
ing Mr. Evans's support in favour of his new dating. 7 
Now it is true that Mr. Evans has, up to the present, 
been disinclined to accept the Berlin dating, and has 
considered that it does not allow time enough for the 
changes that can be traced in the shapes of swords, and 
scripts, and vases between Middle Minoan II. and the 
last days of the Palace in Late Minoan II. It must be 
noticed, however, that the time required may be gained 

1 British Museum Table Case, Nos. 21654-5, 21665-6, 21673-4. 

2 Wallis, B.C. A. 1898, Plate VI. ibid. 1900, Plate TV. 

3 See p. 61. 

4 Sinai, fig. 156, p. 151, Nos. 6 and 7. 

6 Phylakopi, Plate XIX. 9 and 10. See below, p. 85. 

6 B.S.A. viii. fig. 10, p. 21. See above, p. 20. 

7 Sinai, p. 173. 



78 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

by placing the ruin of the Palace later as well as by 
placing its beginnings earlier ; and that Mr. Evans already 
definitely places it in B.C. 1450, fifty years later in the 
XVIIIth Dynasty than he did two years ago, and implies 
that all that he insists on is that the end must have 
come before 1400. * In the second place Mr. Evans's 
latest dates for the Middle Minoan Periods as shown 
on the wall cases of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, 
are not earlier than Berlin by nearly so many centuries 
as they are later than Sinai. A system in which Middle 
Minoan II. ends at 2200, and Middle Minoan III. carries 
us on to 1800, is all the difference in the world from 
one in which the Xllth, XHIth, and XVth Dynasties 
begin in 3459, 3246, and 2533. It would not be sur- 
prising, too, were Mr. Evans to bring his dates down 
lower still, if we can infer anything from some lately 
published arguments of Dr. Mackenzie's, developed at 
present in quite a different connection, but certain in 
time to point their obvious moral. 

While seeking support for his theory that within the life 
of the Palace at Knossos a Carian civilisation is superseded 
by an Achaean, Dr. Dorpfeld has recently suggested that 
both at Knossos and at Phaestos there were two different 
types of Palace, the one later than the other. 2 Dr. 
Mackenzie, as Dr. Dorpfeld would himself probably now 
admit, has decisively shown that he is wrong. 3 It is not 
the case, either at Knossos or at Phaestos, that a Middle 
Minoan Palace, in which living-rooms are grouped round 
a great Central Court, is superseded by a Late Minoan 
Palace, in which the centre point is no longer a Court, 

1 Contrast the Cases in the Ashmolean, in which L.M. II. is 
given as " 1600 to 1450 " with E.C. p. 10, where 1500 is given as its 
final point. See also P.T. p. 131, where he says that the Palace 
Period " can hardly be brought down later than the close of the 
fifteenth century." 

2 Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, pp. 257-97. 

3 B.S.A. xi. pp. 181-223. 



DORPFELD AND THE PH^BSTOS PROPYLiEA 79 

but a Hall or Megaron. Dr. Dorpfeld's mistake is 
partly a piece of bad fortune. Both the Italian and 
English excavators had observed that the West Court 
at Phsestos, with the theatral steps to the north of it, 
and the one-column portico on its southern side, 1 were 
not organic parts of the Palace as we see it, but belonged 
to an earlier building to which the portico gave entrance. 
There was no doubt that this West Court was covered 
up before the building of a great flight of steps that now 
lies to the east of it. This flight of steps leads up still 
farther east to a long landing which, with its remains of 
walls and column bases, forms one of the most imposing 
features of the Palace as we now see it. 2 Both the Italian 
excavators and Mr. Evans had frequently called this great 
landing a Hall or Megaron, 3 and in their use of the term 
the identification was of no particular importance, as 
they did not suggest that it differed in construction from 
the usual type of Minoan hall as found at Knossos. Dr. 
Dorpf eld, however, unfortunately for himself, ignoring 
the Minoan system of lighting rooms by means of an 
unroofed area at the back that served as a kind of huge 
window, 4 and laying stress on an apparently different 
arrangement of the pillars, argued that the Megaron was 
not of the earlier Knossian type at all, but resembled 
partly, if not completely, the Megara of Tiryns and 
Mycenae. It is serious therefore for Dr. Dorpfeld's 
theory that Dr. Mackenzie has made the discovery that 

1 Nos. 1, 4, and 3 on the plan of the Palace of Phaestos, 
originally published in Mon. Ant. xiv. Plate XXVII., and repro- 
duced in Dorpfeld's article as Plate X., in Mackenzie's as 
Plate V. See p. 58. 

2 Nos. 66 and 67 + 68 + 69 + 69' in the Phaestos Plan re- 
ferred to above. Dorpfeld curiously ignores in his figuring the 
difference between 69 and 69'. Quern Deus vult perdere. . . . 

3 E.g. Mon. Ant. xii. Plate IV., xiv. Plate XXX. ; B.S.A. 
vii. pp. 24, 116, viii. p. 32. 

4 No. 69' in the Phaestos Plan. For such light-wells, see B.S.A. 
viii. figs. 29, 30, pp. 56, 57. 



80 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

the landing in question is not a Megaron at all, of either 
a Knossian or Tirynthian type, but only an elaborate 
state entrance to the Later Palace. In it a covered porch 
and vestibule were backed by a vertical shaft or " light- 
well," which served as a great window both to the 
vestibule itself, and to the corridors, staircases, and 
landings that connected it with the upper stories. 

Dr. Dorpfeld, however, has not only been peculiarly 
unfortunate in writing in pre-Mackenzian days about 
the Phaestos " Megaron." He has also been the victim 
of a gross piece of carelessness on the part of the Editor 
of the Comptes Rendus of the Archaeological Congress. 1 
The official summary of the paper in which Mr. Evans 
outlined his system of Minoan dating completely perverts 
it, and in particular applies the term Late Minoan III. 
with a light-hearted promiscuity for which it is hard to 
find a parallel in the history of learning. It is to this, 
if we are to judge from certain phrases in Dr. Dorpfeld's 
article, 2 that we are to attribute the fact that he has 
misunderstood the English excavators in regard to the 
stratification of Knossos. He has wrongly imagined that 
the West Court of Knossos and a great part of the 
whole west wing belonged to an earlier building, con- 
temporary with the West Court of Phaestos, and that 
they were superseded and partly covered over by a 
later structure, contemporary with the supposed mainland 
Achaean type of Megaron at Phaestos that is now proved 
to be no Megaron at all. It is unnecessary for us to go into 

1 C.R.A.C. 1905, p. 209. Mr. Evans has since sent out a 
corrected version, which is quoted in this book as E.C. 

2 Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, p. 295, where views are attributed to 
Mr. Evans that are grotesquely different from the real ones ; 
e.g. he is made to place the " younger Palaces " of Knossos and 
Phaestos in " Late Minoan III., or the Period of Partial Re- 
occupation " ! J. L. Myres's brief but severe criticism in Y.W.C.S. 
1907, p. 19, does not allow for the corrupting influence of the 
C.R.A.C. nor for the fact that Dorpfeld was after all only following 
in others' steps in talking of a " Megaron." 



CONTINUITY OF MINOAN ARCHITECTURE 81 

the arguments by which Dr. Mackenzie shows that he has 
thus ignored the vase evidence of the floor deposits, and 
failed to see that the stratification on the top of the 
hill at Knossos was from the nature of the ground less 
mechanical, and therefore less simple, than that at 
Phsestos. We are, for the purposes of the present 
chronological argument, only interested to show that 
Dr. Mackenzie, in proving his point against Dr. Dorpfeld, 
brings out forcibly what he himself calls " the funda- 
mental unity and continuity of architectural style " 1 
that we find both at Phsestos and Knossos for the whole 
period with which we are dealing, from Middle Minoan II. 
to the end of Late Minoan II. It is not merely that the 
later builders at Knossos laid their foundations, from 
the West Court to the Central Court, at practically the 
same level as those of their predecessors, and worked 
them into their own system of construction, instead of 
building at a higher level, as had been done at Phsestos. 2 
That, though effective as an argument against Dr. 
Dorpfeld, teaches us nothing in the present connection. 
What interests us is that, wherever we can point to a 
particular feature in construction or design that belongs 
to an early phase of one of the two Palaces, we can at 
once parallel it by a similar feature occurring in the 
latest phases. The concurrent use of both limestone 
and gypsum ; the low gypsum benches that run along 
the foot of the walls ; the scheme of lighting by means 
of vertical shafts or light-wells ; the theatral area, 
and the steps on which the spectators watched ; even 
small points such as the structure of a bath-room or 
a porter's lodge ; one after the other, they are all shown 
to be the same from first to last. 3 Even where the 
Knossos evidence does not take us back farther than 
Middle Minoan III., the Middle Minoan II. West Court 
of Phsestos enables as to connect it with the still earlier 

1 B.S.A. xi. p. 212. 2 Ibid. p. 183. 

3 Ibid. pp. 189, 190, 211, 210, 212, 211, 193. 

6 



82 EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 

period. Dr. Mackenzie's arguments really amount to 
this, that a man of Late Minoan II. not only built on the 
same architectural principles, but lived in the same 
kind of rooms, as his ancestor of Middle Minoan II. 

Is it probable that this means two thousand 
years ? Are even one thousand as probable as six 
hundred ? It may be granted that, in a lifeless 
age, architecture and house construction might main- 
tain the same form for an indefinite period ; but in 
an age which ex hypothesi is alive and moving in 
all the other arts, and makes their many changes the 
basis of its claim for length of span, does not this marking 
time in the ' master art ' weaken the force of such a claim ? 
Even if we lay stress on the religious aspect of the Cretan 
palaces, we can find no analogy that is against us in 
the history of Western Europe, from the first Doric 
temples of Corinth or Selinus to the imitation Gothic 
or Byzantine churches of to-day. Even in religious 
art permanence of type for very long periods means, 
either deadness, or an archaism that presupposes inter- 
vening changes. When we consider that the religious 
elements in the palaces were after all subsidiary, and that 
in the main they were houses to live in, our case becomes 
stronger still. 

Even a thousand years is a huge interval of time ; 
and leaving out of sight the special argument we base on 
the permanence of the Minoan Palace, we have a right to 
ask whether the changes in the other arts, in pottery, 
frescoes, swords, and writing really demand so long a 
period. The change from pictographic script to linear 
is the only point that gives us cause to doubt : and even 
here the ink-written linear inscriptions of Middle Minoan 
III. 1 show that the gap was bridged before that period 
was reached. In regard to the other arts the high level 
reached by Crete takes it out of the range of primitive 
or barbarous analogies, and makes it fair to apply to it 

1 See pp. 64-5. 



TWO THOUSAND YEARS OR SIX HUNDRED 83 

those taken from the later history of the West. We shall 
find that in dark ages Art may hang fire almost in- 
definitely, so that, a priori, no interval of time can be 
called too long for it. It is when Art is once on the 
borders of the light, when it is first possible to call it 
good, that the quick changes come, jostling each other ; 
and wfr have hardly had time to count them when 
promise has passed, and we are at the short moment of 
equilibrium that in art, as in nature, we call maturity. 
We may take the analogy of classical Greek sculpture, 
and notice that it took only two hundred years to rise 
from the Medusa Metopes of Selinus to the Frieze of the 
Parthenon, and one hundred more to pass through 
Praxiteles and Scopas to Lysippus and " the beginnings 
of Late Minoan III." Or we may turn to the history of 
Gothic Architecture in England, and show how Norman 
passed through Early English into Decorated in little 
over two hundred years, and how even the stiff " Palace 
Style " Perpendicular passed away in less than three 
hundred more. Or we may judge by the Italian painting 
of the Renascence, and count two hundred years from 
Cimabue to Botticelli, and only one hundred more till 
Raphael and Leonardo and Michael Angelo and Titian 
are all gone, and we are wondering whether Paolo Veronese 
is artist enough to paint a " Cup-bearer." 

01 fxep yap ovkct elcrlv, oi 8' oures Kaicoi. 1 

Are six hundred years too little for the bloom of Minoan 
Art, on its own merits, and apart altogether from the 
Berlin astronomy ? 

1 Aristophanes, Frogs, 72. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PALACE STYLE AND THE SACK OF KNOSSOS 

The covering up of a complex of apartments on the 
north-east, and the simultaneous submergence of many 
floor deposits, 1 mean that Middle Minoan III., like 
the two preceding periods, was closed by a general 
catastrophe. The Late Minoan I. that succeeds it 
is the period of many of the masterpieces of Minoan art 
already described. 2 The villa of Hagia Triada, with its 
steatite vases, cat and bird fresco, and sarcophagus with 
the sacrificial procession, is to be placed here. So prob- 
ably is the royal draughtboard of the rMace of Knossos. 
The linear writing of Class A is now in regular use. Bronze 
swords have succeeded the daggers whose blades have 
been gradually lengthening during the Middle Minoan 
period. 3 Naturalistic designs are still dominant, not 
only in the carved work of Hagia Triada, which gives 
us such vivid pictures of human life in peace or war, 
but in the flower and shell designs of the painted vases. 
The white on dark of the last period has now given place 
to a dark on light, and we find brown or red designs on 
a ground that varies from buff to a yellowish pink. A 
good example is a tall slight " filler " or " strainer " from 
Zakro, 4 with its shell and sea anemones, and an almost 
identical vase, made probably by the same artist, from 

1 See p. 62 ; J.H.S. xxvi. p. 267. 

2 In Chaps. I. and II. 3 E.C. p. 9 ; P.T. p. 105. 
4 J.H.S. xxii. Plate XII. No. 1. 

84 



LATE MINOAN I. 85 

Palaikastro. 1 There is a blending of the two styles in a 
still more beautiful vase from the Lakkos or pit at Zakro, 2 
on which a delicate design of waving water-lilies is painted 
in white upon a red-brown slip. 3 The curious point about 
this white design is that it was painted after the rest 
of the vase, with its red-brown ornament upon a pinkish 
clay, had already been fired and glazed ; itself it was 
never fired, glazed, or varnished, but, as its discoverer, 
Mr. Hogarth, tells us, can be removed with the 
lightest touch of the fingers. 4 Another simple design 
of the period is that of reeds or grasses, such as are found 
on the graceful " flower-pots " from Phylakopi in Melos, 5 
in which the small hole pierced through the base suggests 
that this is not only a convenient name for describing a 
shape, but that they were really used as pots for plants. 6 
Phylakopi indeed shows other close connections with the 
art of this period, as it did with that of its predecessor, 7 
and the latest elements in the second city are contem- 
porary. The Shaft graves at Mycenae, too, begin in this 
period, and stretch on into the next. It is the first 
time that the word " Mycenaean " can be legitimately 
introduced into our story. 

With Late Minoan II. we reach the great architectural 
period of Minoan art — the period of the Throne Room and 
the Basilica Hall of the Royal Villa, the period of the 
great scheme of fresco wall decoration which survives 
to us in the Cupbearer and the groups of spectators 
watching the Palace sports. Whole areas were covered 
with stone carvings or painted plaster. The plaster- 

1 B.S.A. ix. fig. 10, p. 311. Dawkins, ad loc, p. 310, n. 1, 
points out that Hogarth was mistaken in saying (J.H.S. xxii. 
p. ^t,^) that the base of the Zakro vase is not pierced. For a 
description of these strainers, see p. 91. 

2 See p. 26. 3 J.H.S. xxii. Plate XII. No. 2. 

4 J.H.S. xxii. p. 336. 

5 Phylakopi, Plate XIX. Nos. 9 and 10. 

8 But see ibid. p. 118. 7 See pp. 14, 63, 149, 179. 



86 THE PALACE STYLE 

work varied from the sculpturesque high relief of the 
Bull's Head, 1 and the low modelling of the King with the 
Peacock Plumes, 2 to the more usual flat-surfaced frescoes. 3 
These were either life-sized, like the Cupbearer, or miniature, 
like the scenes from the Palace sports. The two kinds of 
fresco seem to have been freely used side by side on 
the same wall, and were framed in decorative designs of 
wonderful variety, in which lozenge and zig-zag and fish- 
scale and tooth and dentil ornament played their part 
along with triglyphs and rosettes and every kind of 
spiral. Even the decoration of the most characteristic 
vases of this period shows the influence of the architectural 
spirit, their rosettes and conventional flowers being 
imitated from the fresco borders and stone friezes of the 
Palace. Naturalism, where it survives in pottery,* 
borrows its flowers and birds and fishes from the scenes 
depicted in the frescoes themselves, just as the more 
conventional style borrows from their' decorative frame- 
work. On all vases alike the last traces of polychromy 
or of a monochrome light design on a dark ground have 
disappeared. We have now what used to be called the 
" best Mycenaean " style of dark on light ; the design 
being of a lustrous glaze varying from red-brown to black 
according to the success with which it hides what is 
beneath it ; while the ground is a buff clay slrp polished 
by hand on the terracotta body of the vase. 8 

Of the conventional style there is a splendid example 
from the Royal Villa, nearly 4 feet high, with the 
triple sprays and buds of a papyrus plant ; 6 while in 
a vase from the second interment in the Isopata tomb, 
the imitation masonry and triglyphs of the miniature 

1 See p. 19. 2 See ibid, 

3 T. Fyfe in J.B.A. x. 1902, pp. 107-31, Plates I. and II. 
figs. 1 to 81. 

4 B.S.A. ix. fig. 72, p. 117, vii. p. 51 ; see also J.H.S. xxiii. 
fig. 11, p. 195. 5 Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxiii. p. 194. 

a B.S.A. ix. fig. 88, p. 139. 



LATE MINOAN II. AND THE MAINLAND Sy 

frescoes are taken bodily over. 1 The conventional flower 
design of another beautiful amphora, 2 feet high, found 
close to it, supplies alink between Crete and the Mycenaean 
mainland. 2 Fragments of vases found in chamber tombs 
at Mycenae, 3 and Vaphio, 4 as ingeniously pieced together 
by Mr. J. H. Marshall, show a similarity of shape and 
design and colouring that points without a doubt to a 
common origin. It is interesting to notice that Professor 
Tsountas found the Vaphio fragments at the same time 
and place as the famous Gold Bull Cups, but they lay 
unpublished in the Athenian Museum till the Steatite 
vases from Hagia Triada suggested to Mr. Marshall that 
here too we might have an importation from Crete. 

The chamber tomb at Mycenae, also excavated by 
Professor Tsountas, suggests a point of contact of another 
kind. It contained a sword-hilt and pommel of white 
faience, 6 which must belong to the same type of sword 
as the fragment of a crystal hilt found in the Palace, and 
the splendid ivory and agate pommels from some of the 
earliest tombs in the Zafer Papoura cemetery. 6 The 
inference that these graves are contemporary with Late 
Minoan II. is confirmed by a small onyx plaque found in 
the Throne Room, representing in relief like that of a 
cameo gem a short sword with horn-shaped guards like 
those of the long sword in the chieftain's grave. 7 Each 
warrior seems to have had two of these swords, the one 
a rapier, a good 3 feet long, the other a 2-feet short 
sword, a kind of lengthened dagger that was used, like 
the rapier, for thrusting and not for cutting. The short 

1 P.T. fig. 144, p. 159. 

2 Ibid. Plate CI. ; cp. fig. 143, p. 158. 

3 J.H.S. xxiv. Plate XIII. 

4 Ibid, xxiii. fig. 10, p. 192 ; see B.S.A. vii. p. 51. 

5 Bosanquet in J.H.S. xxiv. pp. 322-4. 

8 P.T. p. no, and figs. 58, 59, 66, no, 112, pp. 56, 57, 62, 106, 
no. 

7 Ibid. -p. 106. In B.S.A. vi. p. 41 Evans calls it "agate," 
but we presume that his later " onyx " is correct. 



88 THE PALACE STYLE 

sword from the chieftain's grave is especially elaborate, 
with its translucent agate pommel and its gold-plated 
hilt. The lion and goat design ! engraved on it reminds 
us of one of the Vaphio gold cups. Just as there we have 
three scenes in the drama of the trapping of a bull by 
means of a decoy cow — first the bull attracted and starting 
to the rendezvous, secondly the bull by the cow's side, and 
thirdly the bull, like Samson, trapped and in the hands 
of the Philistines 2 — so here we have, in successive scenes, 
first theAgrimi startled and springing away, and then the 
lion triumphant at the end of the chase, with one paw on 
the panting beast's hindquarters, and the other raised 
to bring it down. Though the rapier and dagger are 
found side by side in more than one of the undisturbed 
graves, such as the chieftain's, 3 yet we do not find them 
worn together on any of the representations of fighting 
that occur on works of art, and have no evidence as to 
how they were respectively used. We may mention, 
however, Mr. Andrew Lang's interesting conjecture that 
in private duels the long shield may have been discarded, 
and the dagger carried in the left hand for parrying, 
as in the Elizabethan age, or the France of Henri III. 4 

The conclusion which Mr. Evans has only gradually 
arrived at, 5 that some of the Zafer Papoura graves must 
be placed within this period, throws light on a puzzling 
question connected with what are called " false-necked " 
or " stirrup " vases. The latter name, reproduced in 
the German " Bugelkanne " and the French " vase a 
etrier," is given because of the two handles that rise 
from either side and join at the top of the neck, thus 
forming what is something like a pair of stirrups. The 

i P.T. fig. 59, P. 57- 

2 5.5. App. Plate III. The interpretation is that given by 
Evans in the Ashmolean cases. See pp. 33, 136-7. 

3 P.T. figs. 53, 65, pp. 53, 61, also pp. 1 12-3. 

4 Athenceum, July 21, 1906. 

5 Cp. B.S.A. x. p. 4 and E.C. p. 10, with P.T. pp. 106, 131, 133. 



FALSE-NECKED VASES 89 

former name, which is a truer differentia, comes from 
the fact that the top of this neck, which is flanked by 
the stirrups, is closed, and does not form the mouth 
of the vase at all. The liquid is poured from a raised 
spout, also on the top of the vase, but separated from 
the neck and handles. The type presumably developed 
from a vase with two stirrup handles on each side of an 
open mouth. With large heavy vases it was a good 
arrangement to secure " the straight pull " for carrying ; 
but the difficulty of pouring that resulted from the mouth 
being so near the hands that held it led to the substitution 
of a spout some distance away, like that on our own 
kettles. 1 The transition may have been easier from the 
analogy of the lop-sided " duck " vases of Phylakopi and 
elsewhere, with their slanting spouts ; with the removable 
lid that probably existed in the original type they must 
have looked exactly like an earthenware kettle. The 
suggestion, 2 however, that the false-necked vase is directly 
derived from even this earlier type of " duck " vase is 
improbable. 

This kind of vase, which on non-Cretan sites is per- 
haps the form most closely associated with Mycenaean 
remains, and in Crete itself is found in early strata at 
both Gournia and Hagia Triada, has been conspicuous 
by its absence in the Palace of Knossos. Except for a few 
fragments, only one such vase, and that from the Royal 
Villa, 3 has been found during the whole life of the 
Palace down to the end of Late Minoan II., although, as 
seen in our Strata Section (Plate III.), it suddenly 
becomes the prevailing type in the period of partial 

1 This point of convenience is well illustrated by the slanting 
open mouth of the example from Palaikastro, B.S.A. xi. fig. 12a, 
p. 281, which Dawkins places also in L.M. ii. 

2 Made by Dummler in Ath. Mitt. 1886, p. 37. Our view 
is not quite that of Edgar in Phylakopi, pp. 89, 90, 135. See 
ibid. fig. 74, p. 90, and Plate IV. Nos. 6, 8, 13. Also see above, 

P- 54- 

3 B.S.A. ix. figs. 87a, 87b, p. 137. 



90 THE PALACE STYLE 

reoccupation in Late Minoan III. 1 The discovery, how- 
ever, of magnificent false-necked vases in the earliest 
tombs at Zafer Papoura, with decoration which is clearly 
taken over from metal-work, and resembles that of the 
bronze vessels of the same period, 8 suggests an explanation. 
From Middle Minoan III. to Late Minoan II., false-necked 
vases may at Knossos have been almost confined to 
metal-work, and their absence therefore be due to the 
looting that has caused the disappearance of practically 
all metal objects from the Palace. That this, and not 
the non-existence of the type, is the true explanation, is 
confirmed by the fact that it is depicted in the inventories 
on the clay tablets found within the Palace. 3 

The conventional element to be seen in the designs of 
the Palace Style of pottery, as Mr. Evans calls it, marks 
also contemporary work in stone and bronze. One of 
the magnificent bronze vessels has a special interest in 
bearing a close resemblance to a metal ewer figured on 
the XVII Ith Dynasty tomb of Sen-mut as offered by a 
narrow- waisted Keftian. 4 Of the stone- work Mr. Hogarth 
truly says that we can only admire, but not explain, 
the technical skill with which the hard material was 
worked, even in the inside of vessels with only the 
narrowest of mouths, in an age of soft bronze tools. 5 
In a room on the east of the Palace we seem to have 
one of the workshops where the stone was carved. On 
the floor, one beside the other, stood two amphorae of 
veined marble-like limestone ; one a huge vase 2 feet 
high and more than 6 feet round, finished and perfect, 
with two splendid spiral bands ; 8 and the other a smaller 
vase, of the same type, but only just roughed out of the 

1 E.C. pp. 10, 11. Mackenzie's statements in J.H.S. xxiii. 
p. 201, must now be modified, though only slightly. 

2 P.T. figs. 115, 116, pp. 121, 122. 3 Ibid. p. 121. 

4 See B. 5. A ix. fig. 76a, and also figs. 76b to 85, pp 122-9, viii. 
figs. 1, 2, 3, and 7, pp. 1 7 1-3, and x. figs. 1, 2, pp. 154, 156. 

5 Cornhill, March 1903, p. 329. 

6 B.S.A. vii. fig. 30, p. 91. 



STRAINERS 91 

block. It was not finished when the great catastrophe 
came. 

A brilliant alabaster marble was worked to make a 
Triton shell, 1 and the head of a lioness with jasper eyes, 
which may have served as a spout for a fountain. 2 The 
great 64-pound weight, carved with the coiling tentacles 
of an octopus, which we have already mentioned in rela- 
tion to the Imperial weights and measures, was made of 
purple gypsum ; 3 as also was a tall lamp pedestal, with 
its palmettes and lotus-buds. 4 Variegated marble, too, 
seems to have been a favourite material in the Palace 
for the graceful fillers or strainers that were so common 
in the Late Minoan periods, 6 tall funnel-shaped vessels 
with a perforation at the bottom through which liquid 
poured into another vessel below. The common type 
may have been merely used for pouring wine or water 
into narrow-mouthed vessels like the false-necked vases, 
which must have been hard to fill ; but this kitchen or 
store-room use hardly accounts for the more magnificent 
specimens. When describing an Egyptian vessel of 
similar shape, but of glazed blue faience, 8 Mr. Henry 
Wallis remarks that on one of the banqueting scenes 
in a fresco from Tell-el-Amarna King Akhenaten holds 
a bowl into which a slave pours wine through what is 
clearly a strainer. As such a custom is not usually 
represented in Egyptian art, he suggests that perhaps 
some particular wine needed straining, as in Sicily to-day 
the grape-skin and stones are often left in the wine of the 

1 B.S.A. vi. p. 31. 3 Ibid. 

3 See p. 1 5 . 

4 B.S.A. vi. p. 44. 

5 Five of marble, two of them fluted, are represented in the 
Ashmolean. Seventeen of pottery are mentioned from Palai- 
kastro by Dawkins in B.S.A. ix. p. 310. For the Zakro ex- 
ample, see above, p. 84. 

6 E.C.A. 1900, fig. 18, p. 10 (= Hall, O.C.G. fig. 53, p. 186). 
It is in the British Museum, Egyptian Room, Wall Case 150, 
No. 22731. 



92 THE PALACE STYLE 

country till it is brought to the table. If we can imagine 
that there was a fashion for something like undecanted 
vintage port for the royal table, it is possible the sug- 
gestion explains the prevalence of the type of vase at a 
particular period. It is a strainer that is carried by the 
Cupbearer, though here, perhaps, it is not of pottery, 
nor even of fluted marble, but of silver mounted with 
gold. 1 

It should be noticed that though the decorative instinct 
which dominates this period shuns naturalistic designs, 
and can use even miniature fresco scenes in a bizarre, 
fantastic way as elements in a scheme of wall painting, 
the word " conventional " cannot be applied to the frescoes 
as a whole. The painters of the landscape and marine 
scenes found in the Queen's Megaron, 2 or of the life-size 
figure of the Cupbearer, did not allow their art to sink 
to a level where it would merely be subsidiary to the 
needs of wall decoration; the objects they represent 
have a value to them of their own, and their attempt 
to express nature is sincere and vigorous. The same is 
true of the sculptors who wbrked the magnificent series 
of life-size reliefs in hard plaster that is illustrated by 
the Bull's Head and the King with the Peacock Crown. 3 
In this, its last great era, Minoan art was not decadent ; 
it contained in itself no inherent over-ripeness which, 
apart from any disturbing influence from the outside, 
must have meant speedy deterioration. The hoard of 
clay tablets discovered in the first year of the excavations, 
and dating frbm this period, shows that its linear writing, 
called by Mr. Evans Class B, is more advanced than that 
of the preceding epoch. It was a civilisation which was 
still growing and developing that was given a sudden and 
crushing blow by the sack of Knossos. 

What then is the date of the sack of Knossos, and 

1 B.S.A. vi. p. 16. One of exactly the same shape, but of 
pottery, is figured from Palaikastro in ibid. ix. fig. 9, p. 311. 

2 Ibid. viii. pp. 58, 59. 3 See p. 19. 



THE DATE OF LATE MINOAN I. AND II. 93 

of the two great periods that preceded it ? Though we 
have no Egyptian equation that at first sight seems so 
definite for Late Minoan I. and II. as the Cartouche of 
King Khyan for Middle Minoan III., the connections 
that we can establish are happily not the .subject of 
such hot dispute. Though Late Minoan I. may have 
begun in the last days of the Hyksos domination, it is 
unlikely that it ended till the XVIIIth Dynasty had 
already well begun. There cannot be a great interval 
of time between the cat and bird fresco of Hagia Triada 1 
and the fine Early XVIIIth Dynasty painting from 
Thebes, where wild ducks are hunted from a reed boat, 
and a cat, used as the falcon of the Middle Ages was 
used for higher-flying game, is trampling two wild birds 
and has its teeth in a third. 2 Mr. Evans at present gives 
the date as 1800 to 1600, 3 but it is possible that both 
beginning and ending should be fifty years later. 

This would suit excellently for the beginning of Late 
Minoan II., which is contemporary, almost without a 
doubt, with the frescoes on the tombs of Sen-Mut and 
Rekhmara at Thebes. On these frescoes the Keftians 
and the men " of the isles in the midst of the sea " are 
represented as bringing their tribute to the Egyptian 
king. 4 Most Egyptologists are agreed that there is no 
difficulty, from the linguistic and historical points of 
view, in referring the name Keftiu, the " Back of Be- 
yond " people, as used at this period, to the men of 
the Minoan world. 5 The tribute-bearers themselves 
are depicted differently from the beak-nosed Semites 
or the long-robed Asiatics, or the natives of Egypt 

1 See p. 31. 

2 British Museum, Egyptian Room, 37977 = Breasted, Hist. 
1906, fig. 156, p. 418. 3 Ashmolean Cases. 

4 Breasted, A.R. 1906, vol. ii. No. 761, p. 295, n. b ; H. R. 
Hall, B.S.A. viii. pp. 162-75, x. 154-7. 

5 Von Bissing apud Hall, B.S.A. viii. p. 165 ; Breasted, Hist. 
1906, pp. 261, 338. Petrie, Hist. ii. pp. 118, 123, 157, is an 
exception. 



94 THE PALACE STYLE 

itself ; l and with their narrow waists, rich girdled loin- 
cloths, gartered gaiters or buskins, and long flowing 
hair with the curls upon the forehead, represent, as 
faithfully as one nation can be expected to represent 
another, the men of Crete as we see them in Minoan 
art. 2 The vases, too, that they carry, as has already 
been mentioned, are of the shape and style of the great 
Palace period, and the ox-heads and ingots that form 
the rest of their tribute can be brought into relation with 
the monetary system of the Minoan Empire. 3 Although, 
however, we can agree with Mr. H. R. Hall in regard to 
these resemblances, there is no need to follow him, as Mr. 
Evans does, in the date of 1600 to 1550 that he assigns 
to the frescoes in question. 4 For such an early date 
Mr. Hall is, we believe, alone with Dr. Budge, as against 
an unusually strong combination of Breasted, Petrie, and 
the whole Berlin school, who all place the reign of 
Thothmes III. within a year or two of from 1500 to 1450, 
and make Amenhotep II. come to the throne at the 
latter date, and Amenhotep III. in 1414 or 1411. 6 The 
family history of the three first Thothmeses and the 
Queen Hatshepsut, the daughter of the first, and the 
wife of at least one of the others, is a matter of dispute, 
and we need not decide between the conflicting views 
of M. Naville 6 and Professor Breasted. 7 It is unlikely, 
however, that her death on any theory is to be placed 
more than thirty years earlier than the accession of 
Amenhotep II., and there is no reason for thinking that 
her great architect Sen-Mut died before her. 8 Rekhmara, 

1 Hall, op. cit. pp. 174-5. 

2 Hall, O.C.G. frontispiece; B.S.A. viii. fig. 2, p. 171, x. figs. 
1 and 2, pp. 154, 156 ; see also Dawkins in ibid., p. 212. 

3 See p. 15 ; fig. 1 of B.S.A. viii. p. 171, is probably a strainer. 
See Dawkins in ibid. ix. p. 310. 

4 E.C. p. 10 ; Cor. Num. p. 353 ; see B.S.A. viii. p. 164. 

5 Breasted, Hist. 1906, p. 599 ; Petrie, Hist. vol. ii. 1904, p. 29. 

6 Hat. 1906. 7 Hist. 1906, pp. 266-8$. 
8 Naville, Hat. pp. 57, 63, 70, 71 ; Breasted, op. cit. 



THE KEFTIU ON THE TOMB OF REKHMARA 95 

moreover, the grand vizier of Thothmes III., is now 
known to have actually lived into the reign of Amenho- 
tep II. There is an as yet unpublished scene on the 
walls of the very tomb on which we find our Keftians, 
representing the old man paying homage to his young 
king. ■ Even on Dr. Budge's date of 1500 for the beginning 
of Amenhotep II. 's reign, this would bring the Sen-Mut 
tomb down to 1530, and that of Rekhmara to 1500, 
while, on the more generally accepted scheme, the dates 
would be 1480 and 1450. It would be rash, too, to take 
the latter date as the lowest limit for the destruction of 
the Palace. It would at least be a strange coincidence 
if Egyptian artists were painting its glories at the very 
moment when they were passing away. 

It may be argued that the " Mycenaean " pottery 
from the Tell-el-Amarna of Amenhotep III. and his 
successor Akhenaten, which must be placed in the first 
half of the fourteenth century, shows a marked in- 
feriority to that of Late Minoan II., and that an interval 
of time must be allowed for decadence. To this it may 
be answered that if we agree that the sack of Knossos 
occurred rather before than after 1400, we have allowed 
ample time. The ruin of the great centre of art pro- 
duction would affect the export trade to foreign countries 
sooner than it affected the home market. The great 
factories with their traditions and their appliances had 
ceased working. Individual artists might struggle to 
maintain the old traditions in their own isolated workshops 
or at the courts of princes who were partly akin to them, 
at Mycenae, or in Rhodes or Cyprus ; but the output 
of good Minoan work contracted, and became insufficient 
even for the ^Egean markets, 2 whilst the younger generation 

1 Newberry, Rek. 1900, p. 20; Breasted, A.R. ii. p. 295, 
No. 762. This fact cannot have been taken into account by 
Hall in giving the date of 1600 to 1550, nor has it, to my know- 
ledge, been brought at all into connection with this question. 

2 Though poor work spread further than ever. See pp. 98, 143, 1 57. 



96 THE PALACE STYLE 

was brought up in no great school of art. It is possible 
that in the realism that is so marked a feature of the 
paintings of the Palace of Akhenaten at Tell-el-Amarna, 1 
we have an echo of the sack of Knossos. The isolated 
Minoans who sought safety in Egypt found there a 
vigorous and splendid native art, as we see it in the 
tomb of Amenhotep III.'s great queen Tyi, unearthed 
only this year at Thebes. 2 On such an art, which for 
centuries had existed side by side with that of Crete, 
the newcomers could not impose their own methods and 
traditions. While, however, they adapted themselves 
to Egyptian methods, they may well have helped on, 
perhaps unconsciously, that tendency to realism which 
the art of the Early and Middle XVIIIth Dynasty had 
already developed from its contact with the iEgean world. 3 
All that we can assert with confidence is that the great 
Palace period probably closed before the reign of Amen- 
hotep III. had far advanced from its beginning in 1414 
or 141 1, and certainly closed before Akhenaten came 
to the throne in 1383 or 1380. 4 It is unfortunate that 
a scarab bearing the name of Queen Tyi that comes from 
a Minoan building at Hagia Triada was found in sur- 
roundings that do not admit of close dating. 5 It cannot be 
a coincidence, however, that objects bearing either her 
name or that of her husband have been found at Mycenae 
and at Rhodes more than once in company with objects 
that are slightly later than the great Palace style. 6 We 

1 Breasted, Hist. 1906, fig. 144, p. 376 ; Petrie, T.A. 1894, 
Plates II.-IV. 

2 Times, February 8, 1907. 

3 Breasted, Hist. fig. 156, p. 418 = British Museum, No. 37977 ; 
also ibid. No. 37976. See above, pp. 76, 93. 

4 This seems in harmony with Mr. Evans's latest views, 
hampered though they still are by his early date for Rekhmara. 
See p. 78, n. 1. 

5 Mon. Ant. xiv. 1905, fig. 33, p. 735. It was first used as a 
house and later as a tomb. 

8 P.T. p. 115 ; Frazer, Pausanias, iii. p. 148. 



DATE OF THE SACK OF KNOSSOS 97 

can, too, use the Tell-el-Amarna pottery with decisive 
effect against those who, like Professor Emil Reisch 1 
and Dr. Dorpfeld, 2 argue that the Palace may not have 
been destroyed till 1300 or even 1200. 

1 A.G.W, 1904, Sitz, p. [16]. 

2 Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, p. 292, 



CHAPTER VII 

THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE 

The full extent and meaning of the change in the ^Egean 
world that is illustrated for us by the burnt beams and 
charred wooden columns of the corridors of Knossos must 
be discussed later. For the moment it is enough to say 
that the last of Mr. Evans's nine epochs which it intro- 
duces, Late Minoan III., is that which has hitherto been 
most closely associated with the word Mycenaean. 1 Begin- 
ning as it does shortly before 1400 B.C., it certainly does 
not close till the end of the XXth Dynasty in 1100, 
and perhaps stretches On another century into the 
XXIst. Within it fall the objects found in the lower 
town of Mycenae, and those cuttlefish " champagne 
glassed" from Ialysos in Rhodes, 2 which the British 
Museum authorities were so puzzled where to place when 
John Ruskin presented one of them five years before 
Schliemann dug his trenches at Mycenae. If ever we 
secure a site continuously inhabited throughout it, and 
admitting of stratification by successive floor levels, we 
shall find that it will break up into as many subdivisions 
as those eras which a few years ago we should have had 
to class together as Pre- or Early Mycenaean. Its earlier 
phases are represented by the majority of the hundred 
tombs excavated in the already-mentioned cemetery of 
Zafer Papoura, about half a mile north of the Palace of 

1 See Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxiii. p. 201, and the interesting 
article by Dawkins on the find of L.M. III. vases in the island of 
Torcello, close to Venice, ibid. xxiv. pp. 125-8. See below, pp. 
125, 157. 2 D U g U p i n 1868. 

98 



LATE MINOAN III. AND DECADENCE 99 

Knossos. The art which they represent would not of itself 
suggest a violent catastrophe. Degeneration has set in, and 
proceeds steadily and without a break ; but it is gradual, 
and if we had not the facts of Minoan history before us, 
we could never have guessed the moment at which 
the first impetus was given to it. The pottery and 
the painted chests, or larnakes, recall the designs that we 
find on objects imported into Egypt in the fourteenth 
century, at the end of the XVIIIth and the beginning 
of the XlXth Dynasties. In one of the most character- 
istic graves, an Egyptian scarab is found which, al- 
though it does not unfortunately contain the Cartouche 
of a king, is regarded as typical of the last years of the 
XVIIIth Dynasty. 1 

Already, however, in this earliest phase, new types 
cease to be invented ; technical skill lingers on and 
dies hard, but inspiration has gone. Even the false- 
necked vase, though it reaches its widest diffusion at 
this epoch, is, as we have seen, a type found existing in 
much earlier strata. In the later phases, unrepresented 
at Zafer Papoura, technique itself begins gradually to 
degenerate ; the designs of the last great creative epoch 
are imitated with less and less fidelity. The naturalistic 
flowers and birds and fishes which, as we have noticed, 
it had borrowed from contemporary fresco scenes, are 
now rendered in a slovenly shorthand method ; 2 beautiful 
shells, as Mr. Evans puts it, have become corkscrews. 
At the same time the parallel architectonic style fades 
away into occasional groups of horizontal bands, the 
brown-black glaze has all but lost its fine lustre, and the 
ground of the clay has become a weak pale yellow. 3 

1 P.T. pp. 89, 126; Dawkins in B.S.A. ix. figs. 15, 16, 
pp. 316-7. 

2 J.H.S. xxiii. figs. 13, 14, pp. 197-8 ; B.S.A. vi. figs. 
31, 32, p. 103 (from the Dictrcan Cave), ix. fig. 17, p. 318 (from 
Palaikastro). There is a good example in the Ashmolean. 

3 Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxiii. p. 199. 



ioo THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE 

The great lesson that Cretan discoveries have taught 
us is that the art of what we used to call the good or 
mature Mycenaean type is not on the upward grade, 
soon to be arrested by a catastrophe, but well on the 
downward grade, with its catastrophe behind it. 

Not indeed that there is an absende of catastrophe 
at the end of Late Minoan HI. Till within a year or 
two ago we should have said without hesitation that the 
greatest catastrophe of all came here, when the dead 
are no longer buried but cremated, and iron replaces 
bronze, and the brooch or fibula is first used to fasten 
garments, and stiff geometric patterns are dominant, 
and give the age its name. That such a change as this 
did come into the Mgean world is as certain now as 
ever it was, and that in some places the end came 
suddenly and with violence is probable. In Crete itself, 
however, the Bronze Age seems to have passed into the 
Iron gradually ane^ so far as our present knowledge goes, 
without any such startling blow as the sack of the Palace 
at Knossos. Both the Palace of Phaestos and the Villa 
of Hagia Triada seem to have been destroyed about 
the same time, and perhaps actually in the same catas- 
trophe, as the capital of the Empire. 1 For Crete the 
sack is iEgospotami, Late Minoan III. the long months 
that culminate in the surrender of Athens ; the sack 
is Leipzig, Late Minoan III. the slow closing in on Paris 
that leads up to the abdication of Napoleon. At Knossos 
itself the partial reoccupation of the Palace by humbler 
men of the old race ended before there are any definite 
traces of the Geometric Iron Age, and, before it came, 
Zafer Papoura had ceased to be used for burial. 8 Even, 
however, in the town of Knossos the geometric tombs 

1 So far as we can judge from the character of the latest vases 
in them. See Pernier in Mon. Ant. xiv. 1905, pp. 314 seq. ; 
Halbherr in Rend. xiv. 1905, pp. 374-6, and M.I.L. xxi. 5, 1905, 
p 244. See also Mackenzie, B.S.A. xi. pp. 220, 222. 

2 P.T. pp. 133-5 5 E-C- P- ii- 



THE AGE OF TRANSITION 101 

still show the old tradition in their shape, which is that 
of a small tholos or beehive ; the false-necked vase still 
survives in them, though in a debased form. 1 Elsewhere 
in Crete there is fast accumulating evidence of an age 
of transition. On Thunder Hill at Kavusi Miss H. A. 
Boyd found a short iron sword and bronze brooches in 
company with vases transitional between Minoan and 
Geometric, and uncremated skeletons. 8 In a chamber 
tomb at Milatos, Mr. Evans discovered in 1899 a painted 
larnax or sarcophagus, on which there is figured a great 
Mycenaean body shield, although not of the usual figure- 
of-eight shape. 3 A false-necked vase, however, that 
belongs almost certainly to the same interment is, in 
shape and design, similar to one found at Muliana in 
company with two late bronze broadswords, and bronze 
brooches like those found on Thunder Hill. 4 It seems 
as if we had here not only in-and-out combinations of 
iron and bronze, but a long shield coming down to the 
borders of the Geometric Age, although the probability 
that the figure that bears it is a god suggests that we 
may be dealing with a religious survival. In the Muliana 
tomb, too, if we are to believe the " unhesitating de- 
scription " of the peasant who was unfortunately before 
Dr. Xanthoudides, and upset everything in his search 
for treasure, we have evidence of a curiously gradual 
passage from burial to cremation. 5 Uncremated bones 
were found with the bronze swords and brooches and 
the false-necked vase on one side of the tomb, while on 
the other were found an iron sword and dagger and 
cremated bones in a cinerary geometric urn, resembling 

1 Hogarth in B.S.A. vi. pp. 83, 84, and fig. 26. 
! 2 A.J.A. v. 1901, figs. 2, 3, pp. 128-37. 

3 P.T. fig. 107, p. 99 = J. M.S. xxi. fig. 50, p. 174. The 
drawing of the shield in the two illustrations differs considerably. 
I have assumed that in P.T. to be correct. 

4 P.T. pp. 102, 112, 131, 132. 

5 'E<f>. 'Ap%. 1904, p. 22 seq. 



102 THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE 

in design the early Greek vases found near the Dipylon 
gate at Athens. The earlier remains were apparently 
not plundered or destroyed, and Mr. Evans argues that 
we cannot assume so unusual an amount of reverence in 
an invading foreigner. We may here have an instance of 
iron weapons succeeding bronze, and cremation succeeding 
burial, in the same race, and even in the same family. 1 
With the racial problems that are thus raised we must 
deal later. It is enough here to notice that the lower 
limits of the last of Mr. Evans's periods cannot as yet 
be sharply defined. This very fact, however, reinforcing 
as it does similar evidence from Assarlik in Caria, 2 the 
Island of Salamis, 3 and other parts of the iEgean, is 
important as doing something to fill up the gap between 
the great civilisation of the Bronze Age and the art 
of Classical Greece. When Troy and Mycenae were first 
discovered, the gap seemed abysmal, and there were 
archaeologists like the late Dr. A. S. Murray, of the 
British Museum, 4 who refused to believe in it, and as- 
signed the newly discovered civilisation to the period 
that followed the Dorian invasion, and even to the 
seventh-century tyrants of Argo's. Such views, al- 
though unfortunately they exercised for many years a 
distressing influence on the attitude of the British Museum 
to its Cyprus excavations, 5 are now completely exploded. 6 
The evidence is overwhelming that the gap exists, as 
indeed it is only natural that a gap should exist in what 
are admittedly " dark ages " of conquest and migration. 
Curiously enough, however, the old reluctance to believe 
that any first-rate art can exist at an era one has hitherto 

1 P.T. pp. 112, 134. 

2 Paton and Myres in J.H.S. xvi. pp. 237-71, espc. p. 265. 

3 Tsountas and Manatt, M.A. p. 388 ; Evans, P.T. p. 135. 

4 Handbook, 1892 ; Ex. Cyp. 1900. 

5 Evans in J.A.I, xxx. 1900, pp. 200-7. 

6 For some good criticism of them, see Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 

P- 157- 



DR. WALDSTEIN AND CLASSICAL CRETE 103 

assumed to be barbaric, has come to life again under a new 
form. Dr. A. S. Murray, from the point of view of 
the old-fashioned classical archaeologist, objected to the 
idea of a splendid civilisation existing on Greek soil 
before the Greeks came there. Dr. Waldstein, as what 
we must now call the old-fashioned Mycenaean archaeo- 
logist, objects to the idea of Crete ejecting the Argolid 
from its position as pioneer of pre-Hellenic civilisation, 
and centre of its most brilliant developments. In the 
Preface to a volume that describes the American ex- 
cavations at the old shrine of Hera, near Argos, 1 he 
suggests that some of Mr. Evans's discoveries are not 
Minoan at all. He notices that there is much at Knossos 
that we should not naturally associate with a primitive 
age, and contrasts with paternal pride the decorously 
uninteresting character of his own discoveries in the 
earlier strata of the Heraeum. He argues further that 
literary tradition assigns to Crete in prehistoric times 
a place quite secondary to that occupied by the Argive 
mainland' ; that, indeed, it is not till early classical times, 
the seventh or sixth centuries B.C., that the art of Crete, 
associated with the names of the early sculptors Dipoinos 
and Skyllis, has much mention made of it. He concludes 
that it is " startling to find that of this period, concerning 
which we have undoubted evidence as to the predominant 
position of Crete, not a single trace should have been 
found, especially in such centres as Knossos " ; and 
suggests that " however early some of the Knossian 
remains and the earliest building may be, some parts 
of the Palace, especially its plastic decoration in stucco, 
as well as some of the wall-paintmg, belong to this later 
historical period." 

It may be admitted that the ordinary educated man, 

if he approaches Knossos from the standpoint of a general 

knowledge of classical or Mycenaean art, and has never 

studied the evidence, will be tempted to feel much in 

1 /{.H. vol. ii. 1905, pp. x-xv. 



104 THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE 

sympathy with these views. Minoan art is startlingly 
modern, and there are few scholars philosophic enough 
not to receive a series of shocks when they see a 
scientific drainage and lavatory system and magnificent 
staircases assigned to a date which is nearer the 
Third than the First Millennium before our era. The 
regularity and perfection of the wall-building is of itself 
staggering to those whose differentiation of the various 
styles of cyclopean, polygonal, fifth century, fourth 
century, and Roman construction is based on the com- 
parisons they have made at Tiryns or Athens or Eleusis. 
This tendency, however, to doubt the early character of 
Minoan art, natural enough as a first impression, 
does not generally outlast a day's thinking ; it is sin- 
gularly unfortunate that it should have been embodied 
in a serious standard work. 1 In the first place the 
similarities to later art are often more apparent than 
real. Some of the finest ashlar masonry, that of the 
Northern Bath, for instance, or the Royal Villa, is set in 
limeless mortar or clay bonding which definitely dis- 
tinguishes it from the mortarless fifth or fourth century 
walls with which its beautiful jointing and surface would 
superficially associate it. 1 Secondly, the mere criterion 
of modernity proves too much. If we are surprised at the 
anticipation of the Roman basilica in the hall of the Royal 
Villa, 3 and can find no word but Gothic for the arcading 

1 It is a pity that Dr. Waldstein did not direct his scepticism 
to the articles in A. J. A. viii. 1904, ix. 1905, in which C. L. 
Fisher and J. P. Peters claim to have discovered a " Mycenaean 
Palace " at Nippur in Mesopotamia. A. Marquand's criticism in 
the latter volume, though correct in its main contention that it 
is not Mycenaean, itself contains inaccurate statements. 

2 We hope that H. R. Hall will give us information as to 
points of detail like this in regard to the important comparison 
he has suggested between the wall-building of Knossos and that 
of Xlth and XHth Dynasty Egypt. (J.H.S. xxv. pp. 331-7.) 
See below, Chap. VIII. 

3 B-S.A. ix. fig. 89, p. 145, 



THE SOUNDNESS OF MR. EVANS'S METHOD 105 

of the Throne or the cinquefoil four-cusped arch on a 
porcelain figurine, 1 and have nevdr seen the lily design of 
the frescoes in the south-east house apart from William 
Morris's wall-papers, 2 it does not help us much to trans- 
fer the scene of operations to the seventh century B.C. 
Thirdly, the standard of excellence reached by the art of 
Dipoinos and Skyllis, as we hear of it in later literature, 
was most certainly that of their own period, and we can 
appraise it from the contemporary work of other parts of 
Greece. The tradition which handed down to the Homeric 
bards " the dancing-ground that Daedalus wrought at 
Knossos for fair-haired Ariadne " is far surer literary 
evidence for the glory of Minoan art than any that can 
be claimed for the seventh or sixth centuries. Mr. E. S. 
Forster's interesting study of the large terracottas from 
the Altar Hill of Praesos 8 shows us, indeed, the early 
classical art of Crete in situ, and that reaching the standard 
which we should expect of it. The statement that "no 
single trace '' of early classical art has been found in 
Crete is shown by this single instance to be an exaggera- 
tion ; the true way of putting it, that on the whole 
Minoan remains greatly predominate over Hellenic, need 
not surprise us at all, if we remember the insignifi- 
cant part played by Crete in the politics of every period 
of classical Greek history. Even at Knossos — although, 
as Mr. Evans suggests, the tradition of the ancient 
sanctuary survived and prevented the actual Palace 
site being inhabited — there is a zone, including the greater 
part of the Theatral Area, where geometrical, classical 
Greek and Roman remains occur in normal proportions 
and in natural stratification.' 

This leads us to our final and conclusive argument. 
Mr. Evans's results are not obtained from mere stylistic 
comparisons ; there is no danger that he has confused the 

1 D.S.A. ix. fig. 58, p. 82. a Ibid. p. 5. 

3 Ibid. viii. pp. 271-81. Sec cspecuilly Plate XIII. fig. 1. 

* Ibid. x. p. 51, 



106 THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE 

renascent or derived with the original, the archaistic with 
the archaic ; and he is free from the not infrequent fallacy 
of thinking that all equally good art must belong to the 
same period. His method is rather geological than 
stylistic. It records the stratification of an extensive and 
long-inhabited site, 1 and it is confirmed by the inde- 
pendent evidence of Phaestos and Gournia and Palaikastro. 
What profit is it, for instance, to shake one's head over the 
marvellous classical masonry of the Northern Bath, when 
above it, separated from it by three feet of deposit, which 
could itself only have accumulated after the destruction 
and complete filling up of the bath, is found the cement 
pavement of a later chamber, the spiral decoration of 
whose wall stucco would, if found elsewhere, be unhesi- 
tatingly classed as " good Mycenaean" ? 2 

1 See Plate III. For similar sections showing the various 
strata and floor levels of parts of the Palace, see B.S.A. vii. 
fig. 20, p. 64, ix. fig. 14, p. 27, and x. fig. 7, p. 19, and fig. 17, 
p. 50. 

2 B.S.A. vii. pp. 60, 61. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

Before we pass to the general questions of race and lan- 
guage that are involved in this classification of Minoan 
History, it may be well to deal with another criticism on 
a central point in Mr. Evans's position. 

It may be argued that the question whether the palace 
that Mr. Evans has unearthed at Knossos is or is not the 
Labyrinth, is not a central point at all, but romance un- 
worthy of the serious archaeologist. Such a superior 
view is not that of Mr. Evans ; nor will it appeal to the 
many who have been first attracted to the Cretan dis- 
coveries by the memory of the great world story that 
they first read perhaps in Charles Kingsley's Heroes, the 
story of Theseus and Ariadne, the Labyrinth and the 
Minotaur. Dr. Rouse at least 1 has got King'sley's 
wonderful description, or another like it, so thoroughly 
and firmly into his head, that he cannot bring himself to 
believe that the corridors of the Palace were the scene of 
Theseus's wanderings and the clue of thread that Ariadne 
gave him. For him apparently the Labyrinth must be 
some winding cavern in the hills, where Theseus could 
meet the Minotaur "in a narrow chasm between black 
cliffs," and hunt him " up rough glens and torrent beds, 
among the sunless roots of Ida, and to the edge of the 
eternal snow." If Kingsley really had ancient authority 
for such a description as this, 2 our corridors would indeed 

1 J.H.S. xxi. pp. 268-74 ; Sat. Rev. July 26, 1902. 

2 Temple Classics, pp. 17 1-2. So Hock, Creta, i. p. 56 ; Cockcr- 
ell ap- Smith, Diet. Geog. i. ad voc. Gortyna, 

107 



108 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

be inadequate, and Dr. Rouse might have ground for 
saying that Buckingham Palace would do just as well. 

Early Greek writers, however, do not, as a matter of 
fact, give any description of the Knossian Labyrinth at 
all. The connection of the word with Gortyna, a town 
that lies between Knossos and Phaestos, is principally 
due to the poet Claudian, who wrote in 404 a.d. 1 It is 
strange that Dr. Rouse should think it supports his case 
to notice that " both Knossos and Gortyna actually pos- 
sess a rock cave of the catacomb type." ' We have no 
more right, too, to quote Strabo's application of the term 
to a catacomb near Nauplia as a proof that an ancient 
tradition connected the word with a cave, 3 than we have 
to argue in the other direction from Virgil's use of the 
word " domus " 4 of the actual maze of Knossos. Long 
before the Augustan age the word had got to mean any- 
thing out of which it was hard to find a way, and Strabo 
would doubtless have cheerfully applied the term to the 
open-air shrub maze at Hampton Court, just as Plato be- 
fore him had applied it to arguments, 5 and Theocritus to 
traps for fish. 8 All that we get in literature that cer- 
tainly represents an earlier Greek tradition is the Cretan 
rationalistic version, preserved by Philochorus, 7 that 
there was no such thing as a Minotaur, and that the 
Labyrinth was a prison ; and the fact that comes to us 
from Herodotus 8 that the name Labyrinth was given to 
the great funerary temple of Amenemhat III. 9 of the 
Xllth Dynasty at Hawara, close to the opening of the 
Fayum. 

In the long account that Pliny the elder gives of this 

1 De Sexto Consulatu Honorii, 634 ; see Gibbon, chap. xxx. 
Gortyna is even here probably only a synonym for Crete, as in 
Catullus, lxiv. 76, Virgil, Eel. vi. 60 ; cp. Virg. Mn. xi. 773, vi. 23. 

2 Sat. Rev. 3 Strabo, viii. 369 ; Rouse, op. cit. 

4 Mn. vi. 27. So Ovid, Met. viii. 158 ; cp. Catullus, lxiv. 115. 

5 Euthyd. 29 1 B. 6 xxi. 10. 

7 ap. Plutarch, Theseus. 8 ii. 148 ; cp. Diodorus, i. 61. 

9 fi. R. Hall in J.H.S. xxv. p. 327, xxvi. p. 177. 



THE FOUR LABYRINTHS 109 

temple of Hawara, he states ! that altogether there were 
four Labyrinths, and names as the two others a building 
with 140 columns at Lemnos, and an elaborate tomb of 
Lars Porsena at Clusium. For the last of these he quotes 
the archaeologist Varro, and adds that Varro relied on 
Etruscan legend. It is possible, therefore, that the word 
Labyrinth was here used to represent an Etruscan word 
of similar sound. The appearance of Lemnos, too, in such 
company is at least a strange coincidence, when we re- 
member the old tradition that connects its " Pelasgians " 
with the " Tursenoi," or " Tyrrhenians," 8 and the in- 
scription found in it in the unknown language which 
Etruscan scholars connect with Etruscan. 8 The pro- 
blems suggested by the mention of these two Labyrinths 
will be discussed later. It is surprising that they 
have not been brought into the present discussion by 
either Mr. Evans, Dr. Rouse, or Mr. Hall,* though that 
at Clusium has a considerable literature of its own. It is 
possible that Kingsley, writing in 1855, got the idea of his 
Cretan cavern from the theory, so interestingly discussed 
in Dennis's Etruria? that the underground cemetery of 
Poggio Gaiella, three miles from Clusium, is what Varro 
meant by Porsena's tomb. 

1 Nat. Hist, xxxvi. 13. 

2 Thuc. iv. 109; Strabo, 221. 

3 In spite of Fick, V.O. p. 103, Ridgeway, E.A.G. i., pp. 143-9, 
Hall O.C.G. p. 174. Professor Conway informs me that there is 
little doubt on the matter, as will be shown by Professor Skutsch's 
forthcoming article " Etruskische Sprache " in Pauly-Wissowa, 
and by the inclusion of the inscription in the Corpus. Inscr. 
Etvuscarum. See too Conway's own forthcoming article in 
the New Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. 

4 So C. Fredrich, in Ath. Mitt. xxxi. 1906, p. yy, has nothing 
to say about it except that it was perhaps " a Hall of the Mys- 
teries built by Peisistratus, like that of Eleusis." If this were 
all, why did the hall at Eleusis never get the name itself ? 

6 3rd ed. 1883, vol. ii. pp. 345-56. The 1st ed. was published 
1848. See too Hiilsen ad voc. Clusium in Pauly-Wissowa, iv. 1. 
Kingsley 's idea is perhaps only due to Cockerell or H6ck. 



no THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

If we examine Pliny's language closely, we see that in 
his idea of a Labyrinth there was certainly a mysterious, 
and probably an actually underground element. Wan- 
dering in the darkness, and going up many steps, and 
through many doors, formed part of his conception. On 
the other hand the three Labyrinths he describes — for 
of that of Knossos he has nothing to tell 1 — are all con- 
ceived, not as caves or catacombs, but as elaborate and 
magnificent buildings, that are mainly, if not entirely, 
above-ground. In the only case where we can at all test 
him, in regard to the Temple of Hawara, there is no doubt 
that he was in fact correct. 2 

While, however, we must decline to follow Dr. Rouse 
in his prejudice in favour of catacombs, we must admit 
that he did good service when he ran atilt against the 
double axe. In the excitement of first discovery, with the 
idea fresh in his mind that Labrys, the Carian word for 
" axe," was the key to the derivation of the Labyrinth, 
Mr. Evans was perhaps inclined, in Dr. Rouse's words, " to 
see everything double axes." He assumed too readily that 
the sign of the double axe, as cut upon many of the stones 
of the Palace walls, especially on two square detached 
pillars in the so-called Pillar Rooms, 3 and in a hall which 
he christened by their name on the south-east, 4 formed 
important corroborative proofs that here was the true 
" House of the Labrys." 

In point of fact, the significance of these signs is not 
certain. Many other signs besides the double axe are 

1 Philostratus (A p. iv. 34) seems to be the only writer who 
conceives that the Knossian Labryinth was pointed out to visitors 
as still existing. Apollonius of Tyana priggishly refused to 
go to see it, because he would not make himself a spectator 
of Minos's wrong-doing ! He went to Gortyna instead, because 
he wanted to see Ida. Philostratus clearly would have had 
nothing to do with Dr. Rouse's friend Claudian. 

2 See also Strabo, 811. 

3 B.S.A. vi. fig. 6, p. 33 = J-H.S. xxi. fig. 5, p. no. 

4 B.S.A. vii. p. 112. 



THE DOUBLE AXE AS MASONS' MARK in 

found on the walls of Knossos, 1 and the double axe itself 
occurs, though not so frequently as the star, upon the 
walls of Phsestos. 2 It has even been found once on those 
of the palace of Gournia, 3 and as far afield as the Island of 
Cos, off the Carian coast. 4 On one of the walls of Phsestos 
almost every stone has a mark, and one has two ; 5 while 
on a coping-stone in the Royal Tomb at Isopata there are 
four signs, one after the other, the double axe being in the 
company of a trio consisting of the trident, the branch, 
and the eight-rayed star. 6 There is the probability, too, 
that a great many, though not all, of these marks were 
covered over with plaster or gypsum facing slabs. 7 The 
fact that the pillars of the Pillar Rooms served a functional 
purpose in supporting an upper story is no argument 
against their sacred character, 8 but it is possible that they 
were plastered over, and it is significant that similar square 
detached pillars in the Royal Villa 9 and a house on the 
south-east slope 10 are not marked with the double axe at 
all. 11 It is on the whole probable that Mr. Evans was 
right in the view he expressed thirteen years ago, 12 before 

1 B.S.A. vii. p. 22, n. i ; Rouse, op. cit. 

2 Ibid. p. 22, n. i ; Rouse, op. cit, 

3 Miss Boyd, A.S.I. 1904, p. 570. 

4 R. Herzog in Man, 1901, p. 52. 

5 Mon. Ant. xiv. 1905, fig. 49, p. 439. 

6 P.T. fig. 146, p. 167. 

7 Fyfe in J.B.A. x. 1902, p. no ; Evans in B.S.A. viii. p. 66. 

8 B.S.A. vii. p. 22. n. 1. 9 Ibid. ix. fig. 90, p. 150. 

10 Ibid. fig. 2, p. 6. There are indications that an actual 
double axe may have stood near, but that is another matter. 

11 This is also a difficulty, though not an insuperable one, 
to our accepting the suggestion of R. Dussaud {R.E. Anth. 1906, 
p. no, n. 1), that the fact that in the East Pillar Room of the 
Palace the axe was marked on three, in the West on all four sides 
of every block, was to show the masons that they were not meant 
to be built into the wall, but to stand free. 

12 J.H.S. xiv. p. 282. So A. Reinach in R.E.G. 1905, pp. 
78-90. There is a danger of forgetting that this is a return to 
Mr. Evans's own view. 



ii2 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

he came under the spell of the Labrys derivation. When 
used on the walls of Knossos all these signs, including the 
double axe, are alphabetic in value, and architectural in 
function. They were used as masons' marks, and they 
were chosen as masons' marks because they had a particular 
value or meaning in the pictographic script of the time. 1 

We cannot even accept the suggestion ■ that stones in- 
tended for Knossos were marked at the quarry with the 
double axe, because its name was especially associated 
with the Labrys. If this were so, we should have to 
admit that the Minoan railways were badly organised, and 
that the stones got mixed in transit. 

So far we can go with Dr. Rouse, but no farther. It is 
one thing to say that the double axe, as marked on build- 
ing blocks, is probably only a mason's mark, but quite 
another thing to deny that the pictographic sign that was 
sometimes thus used was essentially religious in origin, 
and could be used in other connections with a religious 
meaning, The evidence is overwhelming from every site 
in Crete that the double axe, like the sacrificial " horns of 
consecration "with which it is often found, was intimately 
connected with religious worship ; and it is highly pro- 
bable that, like the Pillar,' and less commonly the Shield, 4 
it was originally regarded as the visible habitation of the 
divine spirit. In the early aniconic stage of religion, be- 
fore the days of graven images, 8 the object in which the 
divine spirit was thought to be immanent was sometimes 
the axe or shield that was man's weapon of defence 

1 See B.S.A. viii. fig. 64, p. 107 ; P.T. p. 166, note a; J.H.S. 
xiv. figs. 23b, 39, pp. 291, 299, 353, 366. So in Rend. xiv. 1905, 
fig. b, p. 390, a derivative of the double axe is seen in the linear 
script of Hagia Triada, Evans's Class A. 

2 Made by H. R. Hall, J.H.S. xxv. p. 326. 

3 M.T.P. = J.H.S. xxi. pp. 99-204. 

4 P.T. pp. 100, 101. For the ancilia at Rome, see J.H.S. xxi. 
p. 129. 

5 Later the aniconic and the iconic existed side by - side. See 
W. M. Ramsay, H.D.B. extra vol. p. 121. 



RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE DOUBLE AXE 113 

against his enemies, 1 sometimes the sacred tree or grove 
under which he rested in the heat, 2 or the pillar of wood 
or stone that, as " the Pillar of the House," was the 
symbol to him of his security from wild beasts. The 
prominent position that the axe occupies in the dove- 
goddess shrine at Knossos, 3 and the snake-goddess shrine 
at Gournia ; 4 its connection with the ritual cope on the 
Zakro gem, 5 with the horns of consecration on the 
Knossos 6 and Cyprus 7 vases, with the pillar on the Palai- 
kastro sarcophagus 8 and the shrine fresco of Knossos 9 
and with the bulls' heads on the gem 10 and clay seal " of 
Knossos ; its appearance finally among the cult objects 
in the sacrificial procession on the sarcophagus from 
Hagia Triada, 12 is evidence enough and to spare. 

Starting as a kind of fetish in early aniconic days, the 
axe survived as an object of worship throughout the 
transitional stages when the divine spirit first began 
to be represented in human form. Even these transi- 
tional stages, however, were Minoan, not Greek. All that 
Dr. Rouse says about the Greeks never having worshipped 

1 So D. G. Hogarth in a Lecture briefly reported C.A. 1906, 
pp. 17, 18. 

2 This is not suggested as the only element in the origin of 
tree and pillar worship, but merely as one among many. See 
W. M. Ramsay, H.D.B. extra vol. pp. 11 1-3. For the ficus 
ruminalis at Rome, see J.H.S. xxi. p. 129. 

3 B.S.A. viii. fig. 55, p. 97. 

4 A.S.I. 1904, Plate II. fig. 1. See above, p. 27. 

5 J.H.S. xxii. fig. 5, p. 78. See above, p. $7. 

6 Ibid, xxiii. fig. 15, p. 204. 

* Ibid. xxi. fig. 3, p. 107. s B.S.A. viii. Plate XVIII. 

9 Ibid. x. fig. 14, p. 42. R. Dussaud, Q.M. pp. 18, iq, argues 
that the similar fresco of J.H.S. xxi. Plate V. represents a 
Megaron, not a shrine. Whether this be so or not, the horns 
of consecration show that it is represented under a religious 
aspect, as indeed Dussaud agrees. 

10 B.S.A. ix. fig. 70, p. 114. 

11 Ibid. viii. fig. 60, p. 102. 
13 Rend. xii. 1903, p. 343. 

8 



H4 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

symbols, and Zeus not being widely associated in Greek 
cult with the double axe, 1 is off the point. We have no 
more right to argue back from classical Greek religion to 
Minoan than we have to amend Homer by the 

grand old laws 
Which govern the Attic conditional clause. 

We have indeed in this case not only a difference of date, 
but a probable difference of language and of race. We 
may argue forward, and point out survivals ; but we 
cannot argue backward, and deny the existence of what 
has not survived. 

It is possible that Dr. Rouse may have been led into 
this anachronistic Hellenism by what we must admit is 
the unfortunate frequency with which Mr. Evans men- 
tions " Zeus." 2 Mr. Evans, however, as the whole tenor of 
his argument shows, does not mean that the spirit wor- 
shipped in the Minoan age had the attributes or the 
symbols of the Hellenic Zeus ; and he means still less that 
he was called by that name. On the contrary the evidence 
is decisive that the chief object of worship was a Nature 
goddess, and that the male god was only associated with 
her on an inferior footing, as in some mysterious manner 
half consort and half son. 3 It is with a goddess and not 
a god that the double axe is associated in the shrine at 
Knossos. 4 On the schist mould from near Palaikastro, 5 
and on the steatite gem from Knossos, 6 the goddess holds 
it in her hand, and on the gold signet ring from Mycenae 
it is the central object in a scene that depicts her worship. 7 

When the Northern invaders, who broke up the Minoan 
civilisation, entered the ;Egean with their Sky God and 

1 J.H.S. xxi. pp, 269, 270. 

2 Cp. Rouse in J.H.S. xxi. p. 272, with Evans, ibid. pp. 109, 
no, etc. 

3 Ibid. pp. 170-80 ; B.S.A. ix. pp. 85, 86; W. M. Ramsay in 
H.D.B. extra vol. p. 135. 

4 B.S.A. viii. fig. 55, p. 97. 6 Ibid. ix. p. 92. 

6 Ibid. viii. fig. 59, p. 102. 7 J.H.S. xxi. fig. 4, p. 108. 



SURVIVALS OF MINOAN RELIGION 115 

their Aryan faith, there was borrowing and harmonising 
between old and new. The supremacy of the woman 
still survived where the old population was the stronger, 
or where its cult was rooted in the traditions of some local 
sanctuary. The Goddess of Production, Mother and yet 
Virgin, has her softer, and sometimes her grosser side, 
preserved in Aphrodite, the Dove Goddess of Paphos in 
Cyprus and the Sicilian Eryx. 1 In Attica she is intel- 
lectualised into Athene, and in the Heraeum of Argos she 
is the Goddess of Power. At Knossos she lives on, more 
like her old self than in other places, as Rhea, the Mother 
of Zeus. 2 All over the Greek world the divine pairs, such 
as Apollo and Artemis, bear witness to the old cult, and 
it is probable that we must partly attribute to the same 
cause the emphasis that has been laid on particular 
aspects of Christianity by the Mediterranean, as opposed 
to the Northern world. The square equal-limbed marble 
cross that we find in the snake-goddess sanctuary at 
Knossos, suggests the reason why the Greek world has 
always preferred that shape for the Christian symbol, as 
opposed to the Western " Latin " cross, with its longer 
upright. ? The pilgrimages that the Roman Catholic 
Church is organising to the glen above Ephesus, sacred to 
the Blessed Virgin and St. John, are appealing to a wor- 
ship of the Panaghia that is deep-rooted among the 
peasants of the Eastern Church, and traces its pedigree 
back, through Diana of the Ephesians, to the Nature 
Mother of pre-Hellenic days. 4 

1 B.S.A. ix. p. 87. 2 Diod . v> 66j lm 

3 B.S.A. ix. figs. 62, 63, pp. 91, 92, 94, and S. Reinach in G.B.A. 
1904, pp. 13-23. R. Dussaud, Q.M. p. 29, holds that the marble 
cross was only a " jouet " that decorated a wooden box of which 
the nails only remain. 

4 W. M. Ramsay in H.D.B. extra vol. 1904, p. 120 ; D. G. 
Hogarth, C.A. 1906, p. 18. For other survivals see L. R. Farnell, 
E.R. 1905, pp. 34, 35 ; W. M. Ramsay, E.P.R.E. 1906, p. 284 ; 
and Miss Jane Harrison, P.S.G.L. 1903 passim, and R.A.G. 1905, 
pp. 20-1, 36. See eilso below, pp. 138, 198. 



n6 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

It was natural, however, that a Northern people, for 
whom the male was in the main supreme, 1 should transfer 
the warlike aspects of divinity from the goddess to the 
god. Thus it was that at Labraunda in Caria the Labrys, 
or double axe, was associated with the male god that was 
now called Zeus, 2 and it is possible that the type of the 
thunderbolt that is more commonly associated with him 
may have been at least partially suggested by a degraded 
type of battle-axe. 3 It is probable, therefore, that the 
double axes dedicated to Zeus in the cave upon Mount 
Dicte ' represent a religious tradition that was modified, 
but never broken, down to the final settling of the North- 
ern invaders in the Geometric Age ; although, as Dr. 
Rouse truly points out, 8 votive offerings, taken in them- 
selves, do not necessarily suggest the attributes of the god 
to whom they are offered. 

When, however, we ask whether the Palace at Knossos 
is the Labyrinth, we need not lay stress on the Zeus of the 
Carian Labraunda, and the connection of the two names 
with the Labrus, any more than we do on the axe-marks 
of the Palace walls. The important point is that, what- 
ever derivation we take for Labyrinth, it is improbable 
that either part of it is Greek. If Labrus be the correct 
derivation, we must remember that the writer who pre- 
served the word for us 6 tells us that it is not Greek, and 
there never has been any question about the matter. 
Dr. Rouse is once again at fault when he doubts that 
" Laburinthos " could have come from " Labrus ,; be- 

1 The Corn-Mother (Demeter ?) seems Aryan (Farnell, C.G.S. 
iii. 29, 296). See O. M. Chadwick, O.E.N. 1907, pp. 234-68, 
327-44, for worship of the female among early Teutonic peoples. 
How far was this borrowed ? Cp. W. M. Ramsay's remarks on 
the attitude of the Indo-European Phrygians to the pre-existing 
worship of Cybele, H.D.B. extra vol. p. 134. 

2 J.H.S. xxi. p. 109 ; P. Kretschmer, E.G.S. 1896, pp. 303-5. 

3 Is this what Dr. Rouse himself means in J.H.S. xxi. p. 269 ? 

4 B.S.A. vi. fig. 40, p. 109 = M.R. January 1901, p. 58. 

5 Op. cit. p. 271. B Plutarch, Quasi. Gr. 45. 



LABYRINTH, LAURA, AND LAURIUM 117 

cause of the " unexampled metathesis of the ' u.' " 1 
What percentage of place names are ever correctly trans- 
literated from one language to another ? 

It is possible, however, that Labyrinth should not be 
connected with Labrus, but with Xavpa and Aavpecov. It 
must be left to the Greek philologist to determine whether 
from the word XaffvpivOos, once taken over with the 
meaning of maze, the Greeks can have formed a new word 
XdFpa or Xavpa, a passage or corridor, and from it again 
AdFpetov or Aavpetov^ a passage place. If there is any 
connection between the words — and the similarity of 
meaning in Greek is at least a strange coincidence — it 
is more probable that in Minoan itself " passage " 
was the original meaning of laura, lavra, or labra, 3 and 
" passage place " of cognate and perhaps dialectical 
forms that came into Greek as Labraunda, Laburinthos, 
and Laureion. 4 It was natural that a " place of passages " 

1 J.H.S. xxi. p. 274. 

2 MSS. sometimes give Aavpiov. See, however, Meisterhans, 
G.A.I. 1888, p. 40. 

3 Professor R. S. Conway has brought to my notice the col- 
loquial use in Attic of Xavpa for a latrine, a vulgarism that 
would survive from an earlier language. Some of the examples 
he has adduced will be mentioned under the termination -nth. 
I may add to them the direct analogy of the vulgar use of the 
word " bog," which occurs early in English. " Bog " is a Celtic 
word : see Murray, New Eng. Diet, ad voc. For further remarks 
by Professor Conway, see Appendix B. 

4 For similar double place formations, see Fick, V.O. passim. 
The following are from among place names in Greece or Asia 
Minor that he considers pre-Greek, and some of them at least 
are fair analogies. Fick is not responsible for all of the con- 
nections, nor does he mention Aavpeiov. 

' AXdcrapva," AXaacra, $2, 31. KavKow, KavKCKra, 61, 95. 

'AXUapva, 'AXiKapvoaaos, 87, 1 1 7. Kopivdos, Koptoi/, Koprjcros, 74, 1 26, 
"ApPa,"Ap(5iov, 95, 24. 131. 

"Apvrj } "Apvtaa-a, 1 5 1- Adpvpva, AapvatoVy 80, 91. 

"Aavos, "A(T(T(opov f 'Aaarjads, 80, 55 Pimoi/, VvTiaaaos, 32. 

''ipftpos/'lpftpaaos, 121, 120, 55- 2ii/5os, 2»'8r;o"<rds', I 5 ^ - 

Kapia, Kdpnados, Kapnacria, 4 2 > ^Ka.v8eia y 2kuu8l\t], iKavdapia, 4 1 * 
130, 132. 52. 



n8 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

should either be an elaborate building, a palace or temple, 
or a mine. In classical Greece there was a Laura par 
excellence, the " Arcade ,] at Samos, famous among 
other things for its confectioners' shops. 1 So, too, the 
early Eastern Church called its monasteries Laurai, 
or Labrai, as they were sometimes spelt. 8 The name 
must have been originally given, either from the cloisters 
round them, or because of the long passages, with the 
monks' cells leading off them ; but this does not seem 
to have been consciously felt, and the word was used 
for the monastery as a whole. 8 The name indeed is 
still seen in The Lavra, a monastery at Mount Athos. 4 

For all we know, the silver mines at Laureion, near 
Cape Sunium, may have been worked in Minoan times, and 
the inhabitants of Attica may have sent silver to Crete 
as tribute along with their youths and maiden^. Of the 
antiquity of the mines there is no doubt. Xenophon tells 
us 15 that in his day no one even attempted to determine 
the date at which they were first worked, and our prin- 
cipal modern authority 6 has not shrunk from -suggesting 
that they were discovered by the Phoenicians. It is in- 
teresting to notice that the dump of stamped metal found 
at Knossos, the first of all known " coins," 7 is of silver, 
not of gold. Such use of Laurium would not mean that 
the iEgean was flooded with silver, for the richest veins 
were not touched till late in the history of the mine, 
perhaps not till the beginning of the fifth century. 8 It 

1 Athenseus, 540 f. Plutarch, Proverbs, 61. 

2 Epiphanius and Manuel Comnenus ap. Casaubon in his note 
on Athenaeus, 540 f . 

3 So much is clear from Casaubon's quotations, though we 
need not follow him in his view that the word was always equiva- 
lent to a block of buildings or insula. 

4 Once the monastery par excellence. See Tozer, R.H.T. i. 
p. 93. So, too, my friend the Archimandrites Neophytos Calo- 
geros. 

5 De Vecl. iv. 2. 6 Ardaillon, Laurium, p. 128. 
7 See p. 16. 8 Ardaillon, op. cit. p. 138. 



THE TERMINATION IN -NTH 119 

would account, however, for the fact that, whereas in the 
time of the Hyksos, silver was rare in Egypt and twice as 
valuable as gold, it had become more plentiful than gold as 
early as the reign of Amenhotep III., at the end of Late 
Minoan II. Gold was then more valuable than silver in 
the ratio of if to 1, and the ratio steadily increased from 
that time onwards. 1 

A third alternative, that Laburinthos is a Minoan com- 
pound word, formed from a Greek Xavpa, 2 is improbable 
from the historical point of view. Labraunda in Caria is 
practically the same word, and we should have to assume 
that both were formed very late in Minoan history. 

Whichever derivation, however, we accept, " place of 
the double axe " or " place of passages," Mr. Evans's 
general position is not disturbed. 3 That the word is not 
Greek is clearly seen when we examine its termination ; 
and as we shall see later, unless the word can be proved to 
be Greek, its original meaning does not affect the argu- 
ment. 

The suffix in -nth has been conclusively shown to belong 
to that interesting group of pre-Hellenic words that 
survives both in place names like Corinth and Zakyn- 
thos, corresponding to the Alabanda and Aspendus of 
the south of Asia Minor, and in common words that 
would naturally be borrowed by the invaders from the old 

1 Breasted, Hist. 1906, p. 338. He talks of it generally as 
" Northern silver." 2 See App. B. 

3 Nor would it be if we abandoned both alternatives, and 
considered Labyrinth and Labrus common offshoots of a root 
that had some meaning yet unknown in the old religion and was 
applied as such to the dwellings of the Priest-kings. In view of 
the " Four Labyrinths " we must not ignore the similarity to 
the Lar of Etruscan and to Lamnos, the Nature goddess whose 
name is preserved to us in the island the Ionians called Lemnos 
(Stcph. Byz. ad voc. ; Fick, V.O. pp. 66, 10$). Vollgraff in Rhein. 
Mus. lx. 1906, pp. 149-61, believes that Labrus came from such 
a root as this, but that Leibyrinth was derived from it after it had 
acquired the meaning " double axe.'\ 



120 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

population. 1 Some of these are " earthy of the soil " ; 2 
the words for dung, barley-cake, and basket, or names 
of the common animals, hedge-sparrow, cock, and worm, 
which never penetrated Greek literature, but were un- 
earthed by the lexicographers from the language of the 
country people. The similarly formed word for " mouse," 
which remains as the ordinary Greek word, is, in the true 
sense, an exception that proves the rule, as it is especially 
quoted by the Greek grammarians asa" Cretan " word. 3 
Others, again, are names of plants, some of which would 
have been quite new to invaders coming from a cold 
climate to a warm one ; 4 such are the words for chickpea, 
and for the unripe or growing fig, as opposed, we presume, 
to the fig when dried or used at table. The latter sur- 
vived in Greek as a place name in the city of Olynthus, 
and three other similar forms have come into our own 
language, wormwood or " absinth," the " hyacinth," the 
spring flower that we call an iris, and "turpentine," 
which is derived, through the romance languages, from the 
Greek " terebinth." 5 Similarly it has been suggested, 
though not of course in reference to this particular 
termination, that " that which we call a rose " in Western 
Europe is a loan word that the Greeks have passed on to 
us from a pre-Hellenic language. The " wardun ' that 
we find in Arabic is the kind of sound the Greeks origin- 
ally heard, as is shown by the digamma with which 
pohov originally began, and by the cognate Armenian 
" vard." 6 

1 P. Kretschmer, E.G.S. 1896, pp. 305-11, 402-4. 

2 R. S. Conway in B.S.A. viii. p. 155. 

3 See ibid. p. 136. * A. Fick, V.O. 1905, p. 153. 

5 The words are fiokvvOos, nopwdos, Kopwdevs and neipip6-, aiyivdos, 
Kopvvdevs, kkpivd-, aplvdos, epefiwdos and \efiiv6os, okvvdos, dy^ivOLOV, 
vaKivdos, Tepe(Siv8os. 

6 Cp. .Eolic fipohov and Fick, V.O. p. 45. I am indebted to 
my colleague, the Rev. D. Tyssil Evans, for the Arabic. Probably 
the word would not be originally Semitic, but common to the 
Asiatic languages, Lycian, Mitannian and Vannic. Indo-European 



THE EGYPTIAN LABYRINTH 121 

If we agree that this group of words is pre-Hellenic, it 
is unnecessary, for the purposes of the present argument, 
to discuss whether the language from which they came 
could possibly be of the Indo-European group. 1 The 
Greeks themselves, we may suppose, did not know the 
derivation of the word Labyrinth ; there is no reason for 
thinking that it implied a double axe to them, whatever 
it did to the Minoans when they formed the word. To 
them its connotation, if we may borrow from the language 
of the logicians, was a maze, while its denotation was, 
primarily, the maze at Knossos in which the Minotaur 
devoured its victims, and secondarily, the Egyptian 
Temple at Hawara. Even if we believe that Pliny's 
account of Labyrinths at Lemnos and Clusium represents 
an ancient tradition, it is possible in both cases, and 
certain in one, that it represents an Etruscan, and not a 
Greek tradition. There is the further possibility that the 
Lemnos Labyrinth only got its name later, by analogy. 
One of its supposed architects has the good Greek name 
of Theodorus. We know that " labyrinths " were built 
even later than Pliny *js day. Under the Emperor Severus, 
some sort of marble building was put up at Rome by a 
rich provincial, 2 to which the name was applied. 

The Temple of Hawara is another matter. It bears the 
name as early as Herodotus, and suggests an interesting 
problem. The old explanation was that the Greeks ap- 
plied the name to it because the prenomen or " throne- 
name " of its builder, Amenemhat III., would have been 
pronounced *Nemari c , and, by a usual interchange of 
n with 1, transliterated into Greek as Labaris or Lamaris. 

Armenians, who may have entered the country as late as the 
seventh century b.c. (see Saycc, A.C.I. 1907, p. 165, etc.), 
would borrow it from Vannic. 

1 As maintained by Conway, op. cit. t opposed to Krctschmer 
and Fick, op. cit., and Hall, J.H.S. xxv. p. 324. Sec pp. 154-8, 
198. 

2 Kaibel, Epig. Grccc. 1878, No. 920. It was to be an amirr) ruls 
£oocrii/. 



122 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

Mr. H. R. Hall has lately 1 made the interesting sugges- 
tion that the resemblance of the two words may have 
been helped out by the fact that the Hawara temple was 
actually like the Palace of Knossos, both in its complexity 
and in the use that it made of white crystalline limestone 
for its finely built walls and pillars . ' ' Parian marble, ' ' Pliny 
called it, 2 and though it did not come from Paros, 
excavation suggests that it was in fact a fine bright stone. 
The more extensive remains of the almost contemporary 
temple of the Xlth Dynasty Mentuhetep III. at Deir- 
el-Bahari confirm the suggestion, and make it probable 
that it closely resembled the shining white gypsum of 
Knossos. 

The only difficulty in accepting the suggestion is the 
question of date. In the early classical period, from the 
seventh century onward, merchants and mercenaries 
from the Greek cities travelled freely throughout Egypt, 
and doubtless knew Hawara well ; but by that time 
the Palace of Knossos had long been in ruins, and was 
probably covered by the soil. For the three centuries 
preceding the seventh there was, so far as we can tell, 
no intercourse at all between Egypt and the Greek world, 
and even in B.C. noo it seems to have been but slight. 8 
If the name, then, was partly given because of the 
resemblance between the two buildings, we must imagine 
that it was in the centuries immediately following the 
sack of Knossos, when " the isles were troubled,' ' and 
the wandering Northern tribes, not yet settled in their 
new homes, fought, as invaders Of as mercenaries, on 
the Egyptian borders. 4 If we are warranted in claiming 
so high an antiquity for the name, it would scarcely 
involve greater difficulties to follow Diodorus 5 and 
Pliny, 6 who saw in the Egyptian building the actual 
prototype of the Cretan. On this view the word Laby- 

1 J.H.S. xxv. pp. 320-37, and figs 1-3. 2 Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 13. 
3 See pp. 159-60. i Ibid. 

5 i. 61. 6 Op. cit. 



HAWARA, GUROB, AND THE TURSHA 123 

rinth would be applied by the Minoans themselves in its 
original meaning to the Royal Temple at Hawara and 
the Palace Shrine at Knossos, and the two names would 
be passed on to the Greeks together. The Xllth Dynasty, 
to which Amenemhat III. belongs, must be placed on 
any chronological theory as early as the building of the 
Palace of Knossos. 1 

These two last suggestions, that the name was given 
to Hawara either in Late Minoan III. or Middle Mi- 
noan III., raise a further point, which needs delicate 
handling. It has been known for some years that there 
was buried in Egypt, at Gurob in the Fayum, not much 
later than 1300 B.C., a high official called An-Tursha, 
or " Pillar of the Tursha." The name is followed by the 
ethnic and the country determinatives, and the type of 
the mummy's face, and the piercing of the lower lobe 
of its ear, are recognised by Professor Petrie as non- 
Egyptian. It has been argued that this implies a settle- 
ment of foreigners called Tursha in the neighbourhood, 
and the name has been connected with the Thuirsha or 
Turusha who trouble Egypt with the Akaiuasha in the 
reign of Merenptah, 1234 — I2I 4 BX - 2 The name thus 
falls into line with the group of names of invading 
tribes which can now with scarcely a doubt be equated 
with Achaeans, Teucri, and Danai. 3 The only difficulty 
in the identification, the ending in -sha, has been con- 
vincingly explained by Mr. Hall as showing that the 
Egyptians learnt the names through an Asia Minor 
medium. It is the common nominal suffix -azi or -aza, 
which we meet in Halicarnassos and Sagalassos, and in 
Sppartazi, the Lycian word for Spartans. The connection 
is confirmed by an inscription of Rameses III., 1202 — 
1 170 B.C., in which the Thuirsha are called " of the 

1 See Chaps. IV., V. 

2 Petrie, K.G.H. 1890, pp. 36, 40 ; Hall in B.S.A. viii. 180, 181. 

3 Hall, op. cit. pp. 176-84, and O.C.G. 1901, pp. 178-9; cp. 
Krctschmer, E.G.S. 1896, pp. 31 1-7, 394. 



124 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

sea." They are assigned to the north ! along with the 
Zakaray or Tchakaray, who may survive not only in the 
Teucri, but in Zakro in East Crete, 2 and the Shairdana, 
or Shardina, whom Professor Maspero equates with the 
Sardians of Lydia, and Professor Petrie with the Sar- 
dinians. 3 They are here, too, represented as kneeling 
figures, prostrate and conquered. 

That these Tursha were Tursenoi or Tyrrhenians has 
already been suggested,* and is on its merits the most 
probable theory. 5 That some of them settled in Egypt 
as a " Varangian bodyguard ,: is also made probable, 
not only by the tomb at Gurob, but by their appearance 
with some Shairdana as fighting for Rameses III. against 
some of their former allies from the north. 6 It was not 
unnatural, though perhaps somewhat bold, for Dr. 
Krall 7 to connect the long Etruscan inscription that he 
found in Egypt, written on linen and wrapped round a 
mummy, with a supposed Etruscan community that 
had lived on in Egypt uninfluenced into the Ptolemaic 
period, like Jews in a mediaeval Ghetto. 

Do Pliny's " Four Labyrinths " reopen the question ? 
Is it a coincidence that Gurob is only five miles from 
Hawara ? 8 Or do Egypt, Knossos, Lemnos, Clusium 
form a chain that takes us to the origin of that most 
mysterious of all peoples, the Etruscans ? The tradition 

1 Petrie, Hist. iii. 1905, p. 162. 

2 Ibid. p. 151. 

3 Ibid. p. 113 ; Hall, op. cit. p. 181. 

4 Miiller ap. Hall, op. cit. p. 181. 

5 Petrie's suggestions as to Thyrea and Thera (Hist. iii. p. 162) 
are unconvincing. 

6 Hall, op. cit. p. 182, and O.C.G. p. xxvii from Greene, Fouilles 
a Thdbes. This is not mentioned in Petrie, Hist. iii. pp. 147-53. 

7 D.A . W. xli. 3, 1 892, pp. 1 5-22. I owe the reference to Professor 
Conway. It was a " liber linteus " containing a ritual, and 
originally had nothing to do with the mummy. It is not known 
what part of Egypt it came from. 

8 Baedeker, Egypt, Eng. ed. 1902, p. 180 and Map 13. 



MINOANS AND ETRUSCANS 125 

that they came from Asia Minor is as old as Herodotus, 1 
and the common element in Cilician name formation, 
Tarkun- or Trokon-, as it appears in Tarkumbrios or 
Trokondas, is strangely reminiscent of the House of 
Tarquin. 8 Was their settlement in Italy part of the 
general movement of the " peoples of the sea " that 
accompanied the break-up of the civilisation of the 
iEge&n ? s And are the matched boxers on the " Monkey 
Tomb " of Clusium * and on the zoned vases of Bologna 
and South Austria ■ not merely a reminiscence of Cretan 
work that has come up the trade routes, but a survival 
from a common tradition ? How nearly the Etruscans 
were akin in race or language to the ^gean peoples that 
seem to have settled on the East Italian Coast in Late 
Minoan III. we cannot tell, but the head of the Adriatic 
may have been affected by both influences.* The uncouth 
element in the art of early Etruria may have been due 
to Northern influences that are at present obscure, but 
at least it was art, where for centuries there was no art 
at all. Its nobles had a singularly good taste for Greek 

1 i- 94- 

2 Kretschmer, E.G.S. pp. 362-409. Kropp's comparisons 
(M.M.K. p. 58) of Minoan cross-gartered buskins with Lydian- 
Etruscan shoes are not convincing. 

3 So Dorpfeld in Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, p. 292. 

4 Dennis, ii. 1883, p. 332. 5 See above, pp. 33-5. 

6 For Minoan influence in the Adriatic, see below, p 157. 
Whether or no Kropp (M.M.K. pp. 14-5) is justified in connecting 
the termination of the Tyrolese Glurns, Schruns, Tarrenz, with 
Etruscan words in -uns and -urns and the Mycenaean Tiryns, 
the Etruscan tombs and inscription at Vadena (Dennis, i. p. xxxvi 
n. 8) warrant their presence in the Tyrol. It is neither neces- 
sary (with Mommsen, Sergi, Ripley, and, later, Hall, O.C.G. pp. 
103, 174), to suppose therefore that they entered Italy from the 
North, nor (with Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. p. 248, n. 4) to minimise 
the traces of them that are found there. Livy's statement 
(v. 33, it) that the Gaulish invasion isolated and drove into the 
mountains the northernmost of the Etruscan communities gives 
a fairly satisfactory explanation. See Conway's forthcoming 
article in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 



126 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

vases. It may be true, too, in the main, that it was 
native Mediterranean blood, reasserting itself after 
centuries of suppression, that created the Italian Re- 
naissance ; but, as so stated, the theory does not account 
for the dominant part played in it by just that part of 
Italy in which the Etruscans settled. ! Was the old blood 
only strong enough to come to the surface again where 
it had been reinforced by a kindred, and more highly 
civilised, iEgean stock ? 

Whatever is thought of the probability of these explana- 
tions, it is at least clear, as has already been said, that 
whenever and by whomsoever the Egyptian Labyrinth 
was so called, the name was in this case associated with 
an elaborate building, and not with a catacomb. If it 
was so associated in the one case, it may have been in 
the other, and we are justified in passing from denotation 
to connotation, and asking whether the Palace of 
Knossos could be considered a maze, and whether the 
story of the Minotaur could have gathered around it. 

The first point to notice is that the story of the Minotaur 
as we have it is not Minoan, but Greek. If it is probable 
that the word Labyrinth is not Greek, it is certain that 
the last part of the word Minotaur is. A language does 
not use a foreign termination to form a compound word, 
and the fact that -nth is not Greek makes it out of 
the question, other considerations apart, that the word 
Labyrinth as a whole is Greek. That the name Minos, 
however, was foreign was no objection at all to the Greeks 
compounding it with their own " tauros." The Minotaur 
is the Man-Bull, creature and kinsman of the king, and 
symbol of his cruelty and power. Whether there was 
ever in the Minoan age a cult 8 of such a monster, half 

1 See e.g. Dennis, i. p. ciii. 

2 As urged by A. B. Cook, J.H.S. xiv. pp. 81-169, an d R- 
Dussaud, in Q.M. p. 24. So, too, F. Noack (H.P. 1903, pp. 84-6), 
who thinks that we have not yet found the true Labyrinth, the 
Temple where the beast was worshipped. 



THE MINOTAUR AND MINOAN RELIGION 127 

human and half animal, we do not know. Still less have 
we evidence for Fick's theory 1 that the whole story is 
to be explained by a worship of the heavenly bodies. 
The Minotaur, he argues, was the sun ; the moon was 
Pasiphae, " the very bright one," the wife of Minos, and 
the mother of the monster ; while the tower on whose 
walls the wise men traced the wanderings of the stars 
was the origin of the Labyrinth. It is probable that some 
of the Greek myths were influenced by Babylonian 
astronomy, and that the Minoans got the idea of their 
beast-headed demons from the animal gods of Egypt. 2 
There is little evidence, however, in the remains of Minoan 
civilisation of any study or conscious worship of the 
heavenly bodies, 3 and the fact that Pasiphae in Greek 
means " shining on the world " is a slender basis for 
a theory. The extraordinary variety, too, of the monster 
types that we meet with on Cretan gems, and the fan- 
tastic forms that they assume, make it doubtful 4 whether 
they can be used to support a theory of animal worship. 
Besides the Man-Bull, we have a Man-Boar, a Man-Stag, 5 
a Man-Lion, 6 a Man-Goat, 7 an Eagle-Lady, 8 and a Bull- 
Lady, 9 and many of them in sub-species or varieties, 
all differing less or more from each other. Among the 
Zakro seal impressions we have more than 150 of these 
monsters, and few of them are quite alike. Some are 

1 V.O. pp. 28, 127. 

2 B.S.A. ix. p. 84. For some suggestive remarks as to the 
extent to which the monsters of Oriental cult had their origin in 
actual freaks or abortions, see H. Bab in Z. f. Ethnol. 1906, pp. 
296-3 1 1 . 

3 For an example of it, see the gold signet ring from Mycenae, 
J.H.S. xxi. fig. 4, p. 108. Farnell, C.G.S. iv. 143-4, exaggerates. 

4 So Hogarth in J.H.S. xxii. pp. 91, 92, and G. Karo in Arch. 
Rel. 1904, pp. 153, 154. 

5 B.S.A. xi. fig. 10, p. 18. 6 Ibid. viii. fig. 18, p. 302. 

7 J.H.S. xxii. Plate VII. No. 34, etc. 

8 Ibid. Plate VI. No. 20, etc. 

8 Ibid. Plate VII. No. 43, etc. She has eagle wings and a 
fan-tail. 



128 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

obviously mere grotesques, a demoniacal human head set 
in a bat's wings, 1 or a winged cherub with a lion's legs ; 2 
on one of them we have a monster with human legs, 
and the head of a dog or bull, in an attitude of adoration 
to a female figure in a flounced skirt, presumably a 
goddess. 3 The Zakro sealings as a whole * — and they 
are ample evidence — do not suggest a living cult, but 
rather the taking over from foreign religion of forms that 
were meaningless to the artist, except so far as they gave 
an opportunity for the exercise of his fancy, and enabled 
him to provide his patrons with distinctive signet rings. 
It is not probable then that a Minoan himself would 
have understood what was meant by a Minotauros, even 
when he had had the Greek explained to him ; he would 
have pointed out to his Greek friend that if it pleased 
him to give that name to the figure on his signet-ring, 
he should remember the Man-Boar and the Man-Stag that 
belonged to his neighbours, and invent a parallel romance 
of a Minocapros and a Minelaphos. The Minotaur story 
was doubtless helped out by the fantastic creations 
that the Greek invader found around him embodied in 
gems and also, in all probability, upon the Palace frescoes. 
The choice of a bull, however, for the monstrous shape, 
was not dictated by any worship of a Bull-Man in Minoan 
times, nor by that of a bull either, save in so far as the bull 
was the chief sacrificial animal, and associated with other 
sacred objects in cult scenes. 5 The principal, if not 

1 J.H.S. xxii. Plate VIII. No. 76 = fig. 20, p. 84. 

2 Ibid. Plate VIII. No. 78 = fig. 22, p. 84. 

3 Ibid. Plate VI. No. 5 = fig. 4, p. 78. In B.S.A. vii. fig. 7a, 
p. 18, the seated Calf-Man is probably being worshipped by the 
coped figure that bends towards it (see above, p. 37). But such 
an isolated case, natural from the religious origin of the idea, 
does not invalidate our general argument. 

4 Ibid. pp. 76-93. 

5 E.g. B.S.A. ix. fig. 70, p. 114, viii. fig. 60, p. 102, and Plate 
XVIII. ; J.H.S. xxi. fig. 3. p. 107, and Plate V. Cp. also the 
Hagia Triada Sarcophagus, p. 31, above. 



THE MINOTAUR AND THE BULL-RING 129 

the sole reason, that the story gathered round the Bull, 
was the actual historic fact of the Minoan bull-ring, 
and the frequency of its representation on frescoes and 
and gems. 1 

Whether or no it was men speaking the Greek language 
who sacked Knossos, the Greeks must have settled in 
the island soon enough after the sack to wander through 
its corridors, and hear of its grim traditions. It is highly 
probable that the toreadors were slaves or captives, 
won as spoil, if not as tribute, from lands over the sea. 
Each Minoa a may have had to send in its quota to the 
Imperial capital. It is difficult to explain otherwise 
the fact that girls as well as youths played their part 
in the ring ; and the Athenian tradition that both sexes 
were sent as tribute ■ can hardly be a coincidence. 
That there were attempts to escape that failed, who can 
doubt ? That there was one that succeeded was a story 
which, if not true, was at least ben trovato. As the 
memories of those man-destroying bulls, " preserved" by 
the king for the palace sport, were coloured by the man- 
beast forms of art, so the horrors of captivity seemed real 
again to after-generations when they stumbled through 
the long corridors and deep basements of the Palace. 

Few who have visited Knossos, few indeed who try 
to find their way through the Plan of the Palace con- 
tained in the present volume, will question its right to 
be thought of as a labyrinth or maze. The winding 
staircases and the stories piled one above the other, 
that make its interpretation difficult even now that we 
have barely got more than the ground-floor level, must 
have made it bewildering in the age that immediately 
followed the sack, when the upper structures were still 
partially standing, but enough of them had fallen to 
block up doors and passages. The very existence of 

1 See p. 21. 

2 See pp. 1 1-3. Contrast the safe Thessalian TavpoKa6ay\ria (Far- 
nell, C.G.S. iv. 25) on horseback. 3 E.g. Plutarch, Theseus. 

9 



130 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

basements and upper stories would be new and con- 
fusing to the Northerner, and make him feel as Pliny felt 
when he wandered " for the greater part in the dark " 1 
through the Temple of Hawara. On the corrridor 
walls, too, were frescoes that helped out the story, and 
suggested its details. There were the life-size plaster 
bulls in high relief, and the toreadors painted at their 
work, and the beautiful youths and maidens who gave 
the touch of romance. The idea of a maze was itself 
known to Minoan art, and in a corridor by the Hall 
of the Double Axes, on the eastern slope, there have 
been found the remains of an elaborate " labyrinth '■' 
design, painted in reddish brown on a white ground, 
which might well suggest to the intruder the idea of a 
" Palace Plan," and of a clue that could be found and 
followed. 8 Mr. Evans was amply justified when, at 
the end of his first season's work, he claimed that the 
ruins of the Palace enabled us to see how the whole 
legend grew. Their effect on the Greek invader was just 
the effect that the guarding of the Cupbearer fresco had 
on Manolis. 3 

" Everything around," he wrote, 4 — " the dark passages, 
the lifelike figures surviving from an older world — would 
conspire to produce a sense of the supernatural. It was 
haunted ground, and then, as now, ' phantasms ' were 
about. The later stories of the grisly king and his man- 
eating bull sprang, as it were, from the soil, and the 
whole site called forth a superstitious awe. It was left 
severely alone by the newcomers. Another Knossos 
grew up on the lower slopes of the hill to the north, 
and the old Palace site became a ' desolation and 
hissing.' " 

One last word before we pass from Dr. Rouse's criti- 
cisms. If we are convinced that the Palace of Knossos 
is what the Greeks meant by a Labyrinth, it is a matter 

1 xxxvi. 13. 2 B.S.A. viii. fig. 62, p. 104. 

3 See pp. 2-3, * M.R. March 1901, p. 132. 



THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS THE LABYRINTH 131 

of secondary interest whether the Minoans called it 
specifically by that name. Whether the word in the 
Minoan language meant " place of the double axe," 
or " place of passages," or something else, it may have 
been applied to other places as well as to Knossqs. The 
Carian Labraunda may in Minoan have been exactly 
the same form, and the Labyrinths at Lemnos and 
Clusium, for all we know, may be a genuine tradition. 
If further evidence should prove this to be the case, it 
would disturb the foregoing argument not at all. Con- 
stantinople was the " City " to the Byzantines only in 
the secondary sense that London is ''Town" to us. 
In the famous song of the last days of the Empire — 

They have taken the cit}^, they have taken it, they have 
taken Salonica, 

it was Thessalonica, and Thessalonica alone, that was 
referred to. If it was intelligible at the time — and we 
must surely assume that it was — the word " city " must 
have struck the ear without conveying the suggestion 
that it was Constantinople whose capture was being- 
sung. 1 None the less there are few derivations of place 
names so certain as that which derives Stamboul, the 
Turks' name for Constantinople, from the quickly 
uttered " stempol " 8 which they heard the Greeks saying 
when they were going " to the city." Stamboul is not 
only ail example of an expression of position losing its 
force, just as the old locatives Athenai and Thebai 
became the nomin'atives that survive in our plural 

1 Passow, T.R. cxciv-cxcvi. Thessalonica, whose Cathedral was 
called St. Sophia as well as that of Constantinople (Bury, L.R.E. 
vol. ii. p. 52), was taken in 1430. It is possible that some of 
the lines which are usually printed as part of the same poem 
were written about the taking of Constantinople itself twenty - 
four years later, but Professor J. B. Bury assures me that I am 
right in referring the line to Thessalonica only. 

2 es rijv nvXiv, 



132 THE LABYRINTH AND THE MINOTAUR 

forms Athens and Thebes, but it shows how the generic 
word of one language may be misunderstood, and used 
as a specific word in another. l If we may follow up the 
analogy, Mr. Evans's attempt to support his identification 
of the Labyrinth by the double-axe marks on the Palace 
walls is as if some one were to find the word " Polis ,J 
in a Greek inscription at Stamboul, and claim it as a 
proof of its identity with Constantinople. Dr. Rouse 
would find a " Polis " inscription somewhere else, and 
argue triumphantly that he had proved the identification 
wrong. It would be right all the same. 

1 Another example, though not so good a one, is our own 
Chester. Compare, too. Leicester, Caerleon, etc. 



CHAPTER IX 

CRETE AND THE EAST 

" Ex Oriente Lux " is the motto of a brilliant school of 
German writers who have done much to interpret for us 
the ancient civilisation of Babylonia. 1 The motto is at 
once a challenge and a claim, and it has already justified 
its existence for Greek as well as for Jewish history. It 
is the East, for instance, that has explained the mys- 
terious Golden Lamb of Atreus and Thyestes. In the 
ninth and eighth centuries B.C. the Oriental world saw 
a change in the movements of the heavenly bodies which 
it naturally associated with another change, historical 
and political. At the vernal equinox the sun was then 
in the Sign of the Ram, and no longer, as in the past, in 
that of the Bull ; and all the time Babylon and its Bull- 
God Marduk were declining before the power of Assyria. 
Henceforward the coming of the Ram implied to the 
Oriental mind change of power. 8 

So too the idea of the wooden horse in which the 
Greeks entered Troy is seen to have been taken from 
the tall siege engines of the Assyrians, in which the top 
platform swung round on a revolving pivot like an 
animal's head and neck, above the level of the walls. 
Hence the " leaping " of the wall and the setting down 
of the " armed brood " within the city. 8 

1 It is the actual title of a series edited by Hugo Winckler 
(Pfeiffer, Leipzig), and is the motto of Fick's V.O. 

2 G. G. A. Murray, Euripides Electra (Allen, 1905), p. 92, from 
Winckler, W.A.O. p. 30, etc. 

3 This was, I believe, first suggested by G. G. A. Murray, 
Euripides The Trojan Women (Allen, 1905), p. S6. 

133 



134 CRETE AND THE EAST 

For such interpretations the historical conditions 
present no difficulty. From the Tell-el-Amarna letters 
we know of the free intercourse that existed between 
Babylon and Assyria and the fourteenth-century Egypt 
of Amenhotep III. and Akhenaten, 1 while from the 
eleventh century onwards the influence of Assyria 
was felt directly on the coast of North Syria and Asia 
Minor. In regard to more early periods, the great an- 
tiquity of Minoan civilisation and the difficulty, with our 
present knowledge, of synchronising it with that of 
Mesopotamia, warns us that what seems to be an example 
of influence may really be one of common origin. It is, 
for instance, probable that there is a connection between 
the Dove-Goddess shrine at Knossos and the Dove Cult 
of the Syrian Semiramis and the Phoenician Astarte, and 
that some such worship was common to the early Eastern 
world. It does not, however, follow that Knossos 
borrowed from Babylonia, while it is even possible that 
the familiar examples of the Semitic cult that we have 
mentioned were rather influenced by Crete than the re- 
verse. 2 When Mr. Evans illustrated his Minoan Tree and 
Pillar Worship from the beliefs of the early Semites, he 
was careful to show that the evidence points rather to 
some remote common element, the nature of which is at 
present obscure, than to any definite borrowing by one 
side or the other. 8 The burning bush in which Jehovah 
declared Himself to Moses, and the other trees that are 
associated with visions of the Divine Presence in the 
Old Testament, 4 are parallel to the sacred fig-tree in the 
shrine on the stone vase from Knossos, 5 and the oak 

1 For two good accounts see Petrie, Hist. ii. 1904, pp. 259-320, 
and Sayce, A.C.I. 1907, pp. 187-214. 

2 B.S.A. viii. pp. 29, 30. 

3 T.P.C.=J.H.S. xxi. pp. 99-204, especially pp. 130-2. 

4 Ibid. p. 132 ; Ex. iii. 2 ; Gen. xviii. 1, 2 (to Abraham) ; Judges 
vi. 1 1 (to Gideon) ; cp. also Judges iv. 4 ; Joshua xxiv. 27. 

5 Ibid. fig. 2, p. 103. 



MINOAN AND SEMITIC RELIGION 135 

that remained sacred down to classical times at Dodona 
in Thessaly. The pillar that Jacob set up after his 
dream, and called it Bethel " the House of God," 1 is a 
trace of the same idea that we see in the Pillar Rooms 
at Knossos. Jachin and Boaz, " the Stablisher " and " in 
Him is strength," the columns that Solomon placed in 
front of his Temple, 2 are " Pillars of the House," first 
cousin to the sculptured slab on the Lions Gate of Mycenae. 3 
It is spiritual power that is symbolised on the Lions gate, 
between the sacred beasts. 

Such views only strike us as unnatural if we persist in 
regarding Crete as part of the Western World. We are 
so accustomed to thinking of Classical Greece as the 
bulwark of the West against the East, that we forget that 
this attitude of imperviousness is only a short chapter of 
history. The political aggression of Persia meant that 
for the 180 years during which our attention is most 
concentrated on the Greek world, it is the frontier fortress 
of Europe, resisting and not receiving. That all this 
was changed by the conquests of Alexander is accepted 
as a commonplace. Greece did not so much give to 
Europe a Semitic religion, as help the Semites to create 
one ; and the Roman-Greek Empire was a good half 
Oriental. 4 It is our classical prejudices that hinder us 
from accepting as true for before Marathon what we do 
not shrink from for after Arbela. Crete was as much 
part of the East in the Minoan age as Constantinople is 
to-day. There is no need to explain away its orientalism 
as a borrowing from one of the already known Oriental 
civilisations. 

Our general principle that the East came farther West, 

1 T.P.C. = J.H.S. xxi. p. 132 ; Gen. xxviii. 18, 22. 

2 J.H.S. xxi. p. 144 ; 1 Kings vii. 21 = 2 Chron. iii. 17. 

3 Ibid. fig. 35, p. 157; S.S. fig. 137, p. 140. See an eloquent 
passage in Miss J. E. Harrison's P.S.G.R. 1903, p. 498. 

4 For some good remarks on this see W. M. Ramsay, E.P.R.E, 
1906, pp. 283-7. 



136 CRETE AND THE EAST 

does not mean that in detail there was no give and take 
between its various parts ; still less that they were all 
alike. Crete and Egypt in particular were in close con- 
tact from an early period in Minoan history, and in- 
fluenced each other at many points. There is freshness, 
too, and originality about Cretan art, whether it be due 
solely to the environment of sea and mountain, so different 
from the flat plains of the Nile or the Euphrates ; ■ or 
whether it point also, as we shall discuss later, to some 
early blend of race. Many of its favourite subjects, like 
the crocus * and the wild goat or Agrimi, 3 are native to 
the Island. Even the palm-trees on the Vaphio cup, 
which used to be quoted as a motive borrowed from Syria 
when their origin had to be assigned to the palmless 
Argolid, are now freed from the alien taint ; the palm- 
tree to this day grows wild in Crete. 4 Even where a 
motive was originally taken from Egyptian life, it was 
treated in a distinctive way. The water-lily, Nymphaea 
stellata, grows in Egypt, and not in Crete ; but when the 
artist who painted the Zakro vase chose it for his design, 
he found it too stiff for his taste, and gave it the careless 
curves of some field flower that he knew in Crete. 5 It 
was long ago suggested 6 that the lion hunt on the Mycenae 
dagger-blade, 7 which is at least akin to Cretan art, if not 
its product, has a dramatic touch in it that is foreign to 
Egyptian or Assyrian art. The hunter who is under the 
lion, like those who are tossed by the bulls on the Vaphio 
cup and the Hagia Triada vase, 8 shows us that sympathy 
with the other side that made possible the Hector and 

1 So H. R. Hall in J.H.S. xxv. p. 337. 

2 B.S.A. ix. p. 81. 3 Ibid. p. 73. 

4 R. C. Bosanquet in J.H.S. xxiv. p. 320. Contrast Frazer, 
Pausanias, iii. p. 151 ; P. Gardner, N.C. 1892, p. 73 ; Hall, O.C.G. 
1901, p. 189. 

5 D. G. Hogarth in J.H.S. xxii. figs. 2 and 3, pp. 336-7. 

6 P. Gardner in N.C. p. 121. 

7 Ibid. p. 65 and 5.5. fig. 227, p. 229. 
P See pp. 33-4, and Plate I. a. 



MINOAN AND EGYPTIAN RELIGION 137 

Achilles of the Iliad and the character-play of Attic 
Tragedy. So in the decoy scene on the Vaphio cup the 
bull and the cow stand in an ethical, and not merely a 
material relation to each other. It would be difficult 
to parallel this in other Oriental art, in which tenderness 
between animals is usually confined to the relations be- 
tween mother and young. The way, too, in which the 
bull in this central scene turns its head outwards towards 
the spectator, and takes him as it were into its confidence, 
is distinctive. An Egyptian artist would have looked 
at the scene objectively, and from the outside, without 
the touch of sympathy that makes it pathetic and almost 
human. 1 

If we turn to religion, again, the direct influence of 
certain elements in Egyptian animal worship cannot be 
doubted ; but they are adapted, and not taken over 
bodily. The Griffin, the Sphinx, and the Hippopotamus 
goddess appear on Cretan gems crossed with native 
beast-headed demons ; 8 and a snake-goddess and her 
votaries, 3 dating from Middle Minoan III., and clearly 
connected with the cult of the Egyptian mother goddess 
Hathor, are dressed in the latest fashions of the Minoan 
Court. 4 In religion, as in art generally, Crete translated 
its loans into indigenous terms, and contributed as much 
as it received. The goddess with the snakes was herself 
probably not entirely a new foreign cult, but rather the 
chthonic aspect of the Nature-goddess who seems from 
first to last to have been the main object of worship in the 
island. As the serpent, coming from the crevices of the 
earth, shows the possession of the tree or pillar from the 

1 See the suggestive articles by A. Riegl and A. Korte in 
J.O.A.I.W. ix. 1906, pp. 1-19, 295. 

2 D. G. Hogarth in J.H.S. xxii. p. 92. 

3 It may be noticed in passing that Mr. Evans believes that a 
little porcelain figure of a cat, found near, was originally set on 
the head of the votary (B.S.A. ix. fig. 56, p. 77). In the copy in 
the Ashmolean it is conjecturally restored to this position, 

4 B.S.A. ix. pp. 81-4 and fig. 58, p. 82, 



138 CRETE AND THE EAST 

underworld, so the dove, with which this goddess is also 
associated, 1 shows its possession from the world of the sky. 
It may be noticed that the theory, started by Dr. 
Thiersch, 2 that the Snake Figures at Knossos are not 
those of a goddess and her votaries at all, does not 
dispense with the connection with Egypt. They are 
snake-charmers, according to Dr. Thiersch, brought 
over from Egypt to play their part in the amusements 
of the Palace. That the theory is an impossible one 
is shown, not indeed by the similar figures found by 
the British School at Palaikastro 3 and by Professor 
Halbherr at Prinia near Gortyna, 4 where the context 
in which they are found gives no decisive clue, but by 
the shrine at Gournia, 5 of the existence of which Dr. 
Thiersch ought surely to have heard. 6 The terracotta 
female idol that was found in it entwined with a snake 
was, without any doubt at all, an object of religious 
worship. M. S. Reinach has rightly seen that the tra- 
dition of such a snake-goddess survives alike in the 
Furies of iEschylean Tragedy, with the snakes " that hiss 
in their hair," and in the Artemis of the Arcadian Ly- 
cosura, who was represented as carrying a torch in one 
hand and two serpents in another. 7 In Classical Crete 
itself the symbolism of the old religion is probably to be 
seen in the Medusa-like heads found at Praesos and 
Palaikastro, where snakes are held in either hand, or 
spring from head or shoulders. 8 

1 B.S.A. ix. p. 85. 

2 In Furtwangler's JEgina, 1906, vol. i. p. 372. He even puts 
" Schlangenzauber " as a heading, as if there were no doubt about 
the matter ! 

3 Dawkins in B.S.A. x. fig. 6, p. 217 and p. 223. 

* A. Wide in Ath. Mitt. xxvi. p. 247 seq. 5 See p. 27. 

6 He gives at least no sign of having heard of it. R. Dussaud 
{Q.M. 1905, p. 29) has, but believes in the snake-charmers in 
spite of it. 7 B.C.H. xxx. 1906, pp. 150-160. 

8 Bosanquetin B.S.A. viii. p. 257 ; Dawkins in ibid. x. p. 223 ; 
and Bosanquet in ibid. xi. figs 20, 22, pp. 303, 305. For a sug- 



BABYLON AND THE MEDITERRANEAN 139 

That Babylonia also contributed something to Minoan 
culture is a priori probable. The idea of drainage, for 
instance, may have originally come from the Meso- 
potamian cities, 1 and the use of the Clay Tablet for 
writing. 3 There may even be some grounds for Dr. 
Drerup's suggestion that the Dorians took over Laws 
which Minos had received, not from Zeus, but from 
Babylon. The early Code of Greek Laws discovered at 
Gortyna resembles that of Khammurabi, he thinks, too 
closely for it to be a coincidence. 3 We know at present, 
however, too little about the condition of Asia Minor 
and North Syria, down to the middle of the second 
millennium B.C., to determine with any certainty whether 
such influences could have reached Crete except through 
the medium of Egypt. It is rash for Professor Fick to 
support his theory that the Minotaur legend is derived 
from Babylonian astronomy, by the figure of a Hittite 
God at Carchemish on the Upper Euphrates that has horns 
above its head. 4 The same must be said of Professor 
Winckler, who believes that the idea of the siege of the 
city on the silver cup from Mycenae 5 was taken from 
some monuments set up in Asia Minor or the eastern 
islands by Sargon of Agade or his son Naram-Sin. 6 
Whether there is, as he suggests, any similarity of style 
between the Mycenae cup and the Stone Slabs that record 
Naram-Sin's sieges in the valley of the Tigris, 7 may be a 
matter for discussion. There is, however, no authority 
for the idea that these early rulers of Mesopotamia, 
whom Professor Winckler dates at about 2800 B.C., 8 and 

gestive study of this " chthonic " side of Greek Religion, as she 
calls it, see Miss J. E. Harrison, P.S.G.R. 1903, pp. 18-31, 235-9, 
326-32. For other survivals, sec above, pp. 115, 198. 

1 See p. 9. 2 So Sayce in A.C.I. 1907, pp. 182-3. 

3 Homer, 1903, pp. 134, 145. 

4 V.O. p. 127. 5 Gardner, N.C. p. 66. 

6 A.O. vii. 2, 1905, pp. 10-2. 

7 Ibid. fig. 1, p. 11. 

8 A.V.G. 1905, p. 7. So E. Meyer, S.S.B. 1906, p. 10, n. 1. 



140 CRETE AND THE EAST 

others iooo years earlier, 1 penetrated into the islands of 
the Mediterranean. In an Assyrian tablet illustrating 
various omens from the history of Sargon of Agade and 
his son Naram-Sin, a statement occurs that Sargon 
" crossed the Western Sea." This has been connected 
by Professor Sayce and others with a cylinder, dedicated 
to the deified King Naram-Sin, that has been found 
in the Island of Cyprus.' It has long been pointed 
out that the Cyprus Cylinder does not date from an 
earlier period than the seventh century b.c. s Mr. 
L. W. King, however, is now about to publish 4 a copy of 
the original Chronicle from which the historical portion of 
the tablet of omens was derived, and this will show that 
it was the " sea in the East," and not the " Western " 
sea that Sargon of Agade crossed. It is not the Mediter- 
ranean that is referred to, but the Persian Gulf, as was 
natural for a king who is known to have conquered Elam. 
Mr. King's new Chronicle thus removes the only definite 
grounds for the theory that Sargon of Agade crossed the 
Mediterranean or penetrated farther West than the coast 
of Syria. 

If the distinctive character of Minoan art prevents us 
from describing it as Egyptian or Babylonian, we have 
still less right to call it Carian or Phoenician, in the 
ordinary acceptation of these terms. In a certain sense 
we may well use both the words in connection with our 
subject. The similarity between the place names of 
Western Asia Minor and those of the Greek world s point 

1 E.g. Hilprecht, E.B.L. passim. See F. LI. Griffith in A. A. 
1899, p. 213. 

2 Sayce, T.S.B.A. v. 1877, p. 441 seq. and A. C.I. 1907, pp. 139-40 

3 H. R. Hall, O.C.G. 1901, pp. 113, 314. See also Sayce him- 
self, A.C.I. 1907, p. 182. 

* Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings, vol. i. chap. ii. 
1907 (Luzac's Series of Studies in Eastern History). Mr. King 
has with great kindness allowed me to make use of the fact in 
the present book. 

5 See pp. 119, 154. 



THE RED MEN OF THE ^GEAN 141 

to a connection of language, and probably of race. The 
Minoans of Crete were, in all probability, very much the 
same kind of people as the contemporary inhabitants of 
Lycia and Caria. In a slightly different way we may trace 
a connection between Crete and the north coast of Syria. 
Philistia may have been a Minoan colony, and the Semites 
of Tyre and Sidon may, as Mr. Evans has suggested, 1 
have developed their curiously unsemitic love of the sea 
under the influence of their Cretan neighbours. It is 
possible, indeed, that the name Phoinikes, or " Red Men," 
was first applied by the invading Greeks to all the brown- 
complexioned people among whom they came, and that it 
was only later restricted to the Semites of Canaan. This 
view of Fick's ■ is not without its difficulties, and we have 
to explain why the Greeks gave up the name for the Red 
Men of the ^Egean among whom they settled, and applied 
it only to a people who still remained foreigners to them. 
We must imagine that the colour-word was applied in the 
first days of invasion, when the darker tint was unfamiliar 
to the Northern blonds, and that its meaning was soon 
forgotten. It was thus restricted to the one sea-going 
people of the south-east who in the succeeding centuries 
came into close contact with the Greeks as a racial unit. 
The theory would throw much needed light on certain 
traces of " Phoenicians " on the Greek mainland which 
it is difficult to associate with the Semites. Cadmus, 
for instance, and the " Phoenician writing " of Boeotian 
Thebes ' may only be one of the earliest Greek traditions 
of men who used the script of Knossos. They may point 
to the same kinship between the ^Egean and Asia Minor 
as the Pictographs in which Proetus wrote down the 

1 J.H.S. xxi. p. 131. See also ibid. xiv. pp. 368-72. 

2 V.O. p. 123. 

3 The inscriptions Herodotus saw in Thebes (v. 58-61) were 
only Archaic Greek, but, as his language shows, they were not 
the origin for him of the tradition he knew, but an inference from 
it ; in point of fact a mistaken one. 



142 CRETE AND THE EAST 

secret message that was to bring Bellerophon to harm. 
These " baneful signs," as the story tells us, 1 were under- 
stood alike in Corinth and in Lycia. It was always 
puzzling, on the assumption that Cadmus, son of Phoenix, 
was a Semite, that his sister was Europa, and his nephew 
Minos. There are traces, too, even in Greek writers, of 
a wider use of the term Phoenicia, 2 and the specific word 
" Sidonian " is used in Homer for the Semites, in what 
is probably the oldest passage in which they are men- 
tioned. 5 We may add to Fick's suggestions an interesting 
analogy from Egypt. There is no doubt that in later 
Egyptian history the Semitic Phoenicians were actually 
called " Keftians," the name that down to the sack of 
Knossos was applied in Egypt to the Cretans and the 
other " men of the isles in the midst of the sea." * In 
name, as well as in the facts of commerce, the Semites 
here entered upon the inheritance of the Minoan people. 
Was it so also in Greece ? 

There is all the difference in the world between such 
views as these and the old Carian 6 and Phoenician 6 
theories that looked upon Mycenaean or Minoan civilisa- 
tion as imposed from the outside by foreigners. Caria 
played no such leading role in the early culture of West 
Asia as to justify us in considering it as the origin or 
centre point of a civilisation. The excavations that have 

1 Iliad, vi. 152-78. The a-Tjfxara \vypd were in a folded tablet. 
If they had not been, Bellerophon could doubtless himself have 
read them. 

2 Corinna and Bacchylides, ap. Athenseus, 174. 

3 Iliad, vi. 290-1. The name occurs also in the Odyssey, but 
side by side with Phoenician. So also in Iliad, xxiii. 743-4. In 
the latter passage they are called Phoenician in their function 
as the carrying people, not as living in a particular district. 

4 H. R. Hall, B.S.A. viii. p. 163 ; Von Bissing, ap. ibid. p. 165. 

5 Furtwangler, A.G. iii. 15 ; Dummler and Studniczka, A th. 
Mitt. xii. 1 seq. 

6 Helbig, II. E. 1887, and Q.M. 1896; Berard, P.O. 2 vols. 
1902-3. For two good criticisms see Myres in C.R. x. 1896, pp. 
350-7, and G. G. A. Murray in Q.R. April 1905. 



CARIANS AND PHOENICIANS 143 

been conducted there at Assarlik, near Myndos, by Mr. 
Paton and Mr. Myres show us l that its chief contact with 
Minoan culture was at the end of the Bronze Age, in the 
last days of Late Minoan III. It may well have been to 
Caria, among a kindred people, that many of the Minoans 
fled before the Northern invader. 2 In the Dark Ages, 
when the Minoan sea power was destroyed, and the 
Northerners had not yet sufficiently assimilated the 
remains of the old population to create a new sea power 
of their own, men who lived in Caria did in fact rule the 
iEgean Sea. It is to this period, as has been recently 
reaffirmed by Mr. Myres in a suggestive essay, 3 that we 
must refer those passages about a Carian Thalassocracy 
that we meet with in Herodotus 4 and Thucydides. 5 So 
far from Carian being a good word for Proto-Minoan, 6 
Late Minoan would be a better one for Carian. Archaeo- 
logists have been led astray by not remembering the great 
length of time that elapsed between the great days of 
Knossos and Mycenae and the beginnings of the sea 
power of JEgina. and Athens. They have ignored the fact 
that the five or six centuries immediately preceding the 
Classical period were not likely to have left no traditions 
at all. While Dr. Murray and Dr. Waldstein have wrongly 
assigned to the great gap what is long anterior to it, 7 some 
German scholars have gone to the opposite extreme, and 
deprived the gap of even the small content that rightly 
belonged to it. 

If, however, it is geographically and historically un- 

1 J.H.S. xvi. pp. 264-7. 

2 So Dorpfeld in Ath. Mitt. xxx. p. 292. He regards this, how- 
ever, as a return of " Carians " to their fatherland. The story- 
preserved in Herodotus (i. 173) of the migration to Lycia of 
Sarpedon, the brother of Minos, may possibly be referred to this 
period. For L.M. III. remains at Miletus, see Dawkins, Y.W.C.S. 
p. 7. Ephorus (ap. Strabo, 941) calls Sarpedon its founder. See 
pp. 198,202. 3 J.H.S. xxvi. pp. 84-130. 

4 i. 171. 6 i. 4, 8. 

6 So Dorpfeld, Ath. Mitt. xxx. p. 296. 7 See p. 103. 



144 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

sound to call the Minoan culture Car i an, it is racially 
unsound as well to ascribe it to the Phoenicians of Sidon 
and Tyre. The influence of Phoenicia in the Mge&n was 
foreign, late, sporadic. It developed in the gradual days 
of decadence that followed the sack of Knossos. It 
reached its height in the Dark Ages that swept away 
before the iron swords of the Northern invaders all but 
the memories of art and beauty. It was only then, when 
the hand of Egypt was weary and relaxed, and the chaos 
of conquest and migration left the iEgean without a 
master, that the " grave Tyrian trader " saw that his day 
had come to leave the southern coast-land and expand 
north and west. It was only in virtue of the few cen- 
turies which followed the twelfth that he could call " the 
iEgean isles " " his ancient home," and see the " merry 
Grecian coaster " as " the intruder." 

But Matthew Arnold's well-known stanzas ■ suggest a 
deeper problem. This 

Merry Grecian coaster 
from Chios or Miletus — these 

Young, light-hearted masters of the waves, 

were they in any real sense entering upon their rightful 
inheritance ? Were they the descendants in race, lan- 
guage, beliefs, of the people who created the early art of 
the iEgean ? Have we any right to call that art Greek ? 

It may at once be frankly admitted that to these ques- 
tions no full and adequate answer can yet be given ; we 
can only suggest some of the lines of argument which 
may some day, with the help of further discoveries, 
succeed in solving them. 

The first point that we must be clear about is that the 
question is largely one of degree. No scholars suggest 
or could suggest that the Minoans were Greek in the full 
sense of the word. The Greek race of the Classical period 
is admittedly a blend of Northern and Southern elements. 

1 The Scholar Gipsy. 



THE MAKING OF GREECE 145 

Certain of these elements came into the Mgea.11 world 
comparatively late in history, and cannot be responsible 
for the development of Minoan culture from its Neolithic 
beginnings to its zenith in the great artistic periods. 
Was the Greek language one of these late intrusive ele- 
ments ? If it was so, is this a case where the coming of 
a new language means only to a slight extent the coming 
of a new race ? Was some kind of Indo-European spoken 
in the ^Egean before Greek, 1 and did the men who intro- 
duced Greek find there, when they came, men who were 
partially akin to them in race ? Or was Greek itself 
already in the iEgean before the last wave of invasion 
came, and did the last Northerners, as Professor Ridgeway 
holds, 2 contribute, not the Greek language, but other 
Indo-European elements ? Was the coming of Greek 
a simple thing, like the imposition of Arabic on Egypt, 
where a small body of conquerors brought about a com- 
plete change of language, but hardly any change of 
stock ? 3 Or are we to look for analogies to the com- 
plicated making of England, where four successive waves 
of Indo-European conquest, Celtic, Roman, Saxon, and 
Norman, have beaten out a language which in different 
degrees bears the mark of them all, and yet have failed 
to destroy the original pre-Indo-European race, that 
has all the time survived almost unmixed in Wales and 
Western Ireland, and is slowly reasserting itself else- 
where. 4 

The problem that we have to face is one of intrusive 
elements — when and whence they came, and what 
particular contribution they made to the general stock. 
Grant, with most ethnologists, 5 that practically the 

1 As held by Conway, B.S.A. viii. pp. 141-56. 

2 E.A.G. i. 1901. 3 Petrie, Migrations, 1906, p. 15. 

4 Beddoe in J.A.I, xxxv. 1905, pp. 236-7 and Plate XVII.: 
Rhys and Jones, W.P. 4th cd. 1906, pp. 1-35, 617-41. See 
below, p. 194. 

5 E.g. Sergi. M.R. 1901 ; Ripley, R.E. 1900. 

10 



146 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

whole basin of the Mediterranean was inhabited in 
Neolithic times by a dark-skinned long-headed race ; 
that this race possesses extraordinary persistence, and, 
in spite of constant invasions and conquests, remains 
the basis of the present population in Spain, Italy, Greece, 
and Egypt ; that it is the most gifted race in the world, 
and that the artistic impulse, wherever we find it in 
the area which it inhabits, has always been due to it. 
Grant all this, and we are little nearer solving what is 
the really interesting part of the question, at what times 
and under what influences its various branches developed 
their special characteristics and their widely different 
languages. 

One hypothesis only can we reject with confidence, 
that part, namely, of Professor Ridgeway's theory ' 
which combines the two propositions that the creators 
of the /Egean civilisation were indigenous and unmixed 
from the earliest times to the end of the Bronze Age, 
and that they spoke, or rather, we should say, evolved, 
the Greek language. It could only be justified by the 
assumption that the original centre of diffusion of the 
Indo-European group of languages was the shores of the 
Mediterranean, and that the dialect which was afterwards 
to grow into Greek was left stranded there at a remote 
period. The linguistic and historical improbabilities of 
such a theory would on general grounds put it out of 
court, even if we do not see in isolated languages such as 
Basque and Finnish, and certain place names and other 
primitive features in the Greek language itself, traces of 
a pre- Aryan element in Europe. 2 

It is at this point that we naturally ask how far 
light has been thrown on the question of language 
by recent discoveries. The pictographic and linear 

1 E.A.G. i. 1901, pp. 81, 92, and 645-80. 

2 E.g. Kretschmer, E.G.S. 1896, pp. 289-409; H. R. Hall, 
O.C.G. 1901, pp. 83-97, and J.H.S. xxv. pp. 323-5. Cp. Cowley's 
Ugro-Finnic theory in C.R. xix. p. 71. 



THE MINOAN SCRIPTS 147 

scripts of Knossos offer us material in abundance, and 
there is a certain amount of it, though not so much, 
at Phsestos and Hagia Triada ; but we have no means 
of deciphering it. The intercourse between Crete and 
Egypt, close as it was, was hardly of the political nature 
that would involve bilingual inscriptions. It was be- 
cause Greek and Egyptian, Persian and Babylonian lived 
under the same government, that we possess the Rosetta 
stone and the great inscriptions of Behistun. It is 
almost too much to hope for that Egyptian will do for 
prehistoric Greece what, a century ago, Classical Greek 
did for Egypt. Nor do we possess a series of proper 
names, like the list of the Achsemenid Kings, which led 
Grotefend and Rawlinson along a sure chain of inference, 
and enabled them, without any bilingual clues, to decipher 
Old Persian. 1 Minos is a poor stock-in-trade with which 
to start operations ! 

When Mr. Evans publishes the full material, as he 
hopes shortly to do, a it will be seen that he has established 
certain preliminary points. He has satisfied himself 
that whereas the pictographic script was written either 
right to left, or " boustrophedon," or left to right, the 
first class of linear script runs generally, and the second 
class always, in the last direction. This method of 
writing from left to right had indeed become so fixed at 
this latter period that symbols which still retain something 
of their pictographic form, and can be regarded as 
" facing " one way or the other, face towards the right 
without apparently conveying any ambiguity as to the 
direction in which they are to be read. In Egyptian, 
which can be written indifferently right to left or left 
to right, the symbols always face the direction from which 
the inscription is to be read. In the Cretan inventory 
lists, on the other hand, the totals are placed on the 
right, even although the figures face that way, and it is 

1 For a good account of this see Sayce, A.C.I. 1007, pp. 1-35. 

2 Through the Clarendon Press, Oxford. 



148 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

reasonable to suppose that totals come at the end and 
not at the beginning of a line. 1 

In regard to the origin of these three scripts, Mr. Evans's 
comparisons of them with other early alphabets suggest 
many interesting points, such as a connection with the 
pre-Dynastic population of Egypt, 2 but they cannot be 
said to have led yet to any sure results. It should be 
noticed that certain later Greek alphabetic forms occur 
on some fishlike bone objects at Knossos, 8 and as counter- 
signs on seals at Hagia Triada. 4 They are unlike either the 
pictographic or the linear Cretan script, but their occur- 
rence on porcelain and other ware in Early Egypt 8 suggests 
that there were a large number of competing signs in 
existence in the Mediterranean from very early times. 
The Greek alphabet was a selection from an extensive 
repertory, from which each highly civilised branch 
of the Mediterranean race had picked and chosen in its 
turn. 

Even when the full material is before the world, it 
is possible that, without some bilingual clue, no one will 
gather more from the inscriptions than Mr. Evans yet 
has done. He has made out certain signs already, those 
for man and woman for instance, some numerals, and 
objects such as arrows and spears. 6 Between the two 
linear scripts he has discovered so many points in common, 
in one case even what appears to be a personal name, 
that it is probable they represent the same language. 7 
The excavation, too, of the Little Palace shows the 

1 Evans in Phylakopi, p. 184 ; H. R. Hall, O.C.G. p. 141, and 
C.R. xix. p. 80 ; Evans, C.R. xix. p. 187. Personal communica- 
tions with both writers suggest that the above is the correct 
view of the matter. 

2 J.H.S. xvii. pp. 377-95. 3 B.S.A. vii. pp. 118-20. 

4 Mon. Ant. xiii. fig. 43, pp. 47-52. 

5 Refs. ap. B.S.A. vii. p. 119. Cp. ibid. vi. p. 42. 

6 B.S.A. vi. pp. 55-9, viii. p. 94, ix. p. 53, x. pp. 57-61 ; Phyla- 
kopi, p. 183. 

7 B.S.A. ix. p. 54. See Times, Nov. 26, 1903. 



THE MINOAN SCRIPTS OUTSIDE CRETE 149 

important fact that this language remained at least in 
partial use in Late Minoan III. 1 It has already been 
remarked 2 that at an early period it was written with 
pen and ink, and not only scratched on clay. The clay 
tablet, it may be noticed, is probably the direct ancestor 
of the Greek and Roman custom of writing with a " stilus " 
on a tablet coated with wax. 

How far these systems of writing, and the language 
that they represent, prevailed outside of Crete, it is 
impossible yet to tell. The Island of Melos, whose close 
connection with Crete we have already had several times 
to notice, 3 seems to be the only place where traces of 
the Minoan scripts occur in any considerable quantity. 
Even here there are only marks on vases, 4 and the same 
is true of the still more isolated traces found on terracotta 
or stone vases in the Island of Cythera or on the main- 
land, at Mycenae and elsewhere. 5 Such marks, like 
those on the spinning whorls from Troy, 6 may point to 
the fact that a system of writing existed in their original 
centre of diffusion ; but in their place of discovery they 
may be trade-marks, copied and used without compre- 
hension of their original meaning. They may belong, 
too, some of them, not to any particular system of 
developed writing, but to the original stock of signs 
common to the Mediterranean race. It would hardly be 
maintained that the pottery marks at Tordos, in Transyl- 
vania, which resemble so closely those on the Trojan 
whorls, 7 prove that the Minoan script and the Minoan 
language were in use in Neolithic Hungary. 8 

The fact that the remains of the script at Mycenae 

1 B.S.A. xi. p. 16. 2 See p. 64. 

3 See pp. 14, 63, 85. * Phylakopi, pp. 177-85, figs. 150-9. 

5 J.H.S. xiv. pp. 272-4, Tsountas-Manalt, 1897, M.A. pp. 268-93. 

6 H. Schmidt in Dorpfeld, T.I. 1902, i. pp. 427-8, and Beilage 
48. 

7 H. Schmidt in Z. f. Elhnol. 1903, figs. 38-9, p. 457. 

8 Evans has some remarks on this point in J.H.S. xvii, 
pp. 391-2, and xiv. p. 367, 



150 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

and Tiryns are so small as to be negligible, may only be 
an accident, due to the fact that they were continuously 
inhabited, and not destroyed under conditions favourable 
to the preservation of Clay Tablets. 1 Even Cyprus seems 
only to have produced three balls of clay with inscriptions 
on them ; 8 yet it can scarcely have been without some 
system of writing on Clay Tablets, whatever its relation 
was to that of Crete. 8 

The absence, however, of masons' marks on the mass of 
stonework that survives in the Argolid cannot be thus 
explained. It is not surprising that in 1897, before much 
was known of the Cretan scripts, Professor Tsountas 
followed M. Perrot in denying the art of writing to 
' Mycenaean " civilisation. 4 We know now that to the 
centrepoint of that civilisation writing was familiar, 
and it is difficult to believe that a district that was in 
such close touch with it as the Argolid would not have 
used the Cretan script if it had understood it. Though 
the evidence of place names makes it almost certain 
that the same language was spoken all over the iEgean 
at some period before the coming of Greek, it is not clear, 
on the linguistic evidence alone, when this period was. r 
It is not out of the question that a different language was 
being spoken on the mainland at the time when the 
Minoan scripts were in use in Crete. 

Still less is it clear, on the evidence of the scripts them- 
selves, whether or not their language was Indo-European. 
Although Mr. Evans has found in it changing suffixes that 
may be inflexional terminations, 6 this fact in itself proves 
nothing as to its affinities. There are suffixes in Lycian, 
which in the opinion of most authorities does not belong 

1 See above, p. 18 ; also Sayce, A.C.I, pp. 18 1-3. 

2 From Enkomi. See Evans, J.A.I, xxx. 1900, fig. 14, p. 217. 

3 Sayce, op. cit. 4 Tsountas-Manatt, M.A. pp. 284, 291-2. 

5 See pp. 154-5' 197-8.. 

6 E.g. Phylakopi, p. 183. Mr. Evans has also kindly made the 
general statement to me personally. 



THE PR^SOS INSCRIPTIONS 151 

to the Indo-European group ; i and there are pronominal 
suffixes in all Semitic languages, case endings in Classical 
Arabic, and survivals of them in Hebrew. 2 

It might carry the matter a stage farther if we could 
be sure that the unknown script represents the same 
language as the Stone Slabs from Prsesos, in the interior 
of Eastern Crete. Its three short inscriptions are written 
in a fully developed Greek alphabet, although not in the 
Greek language. They have been subjected to an ex- 
haustive examination by Professor R. S. Conway, 3 who has 
made it not improbable that their language is an Indo- 
European one, with a special kinship to Venetic. The 
actual inscriptions only date from the sixth to the fourth 
centuries B.C. respectively, but the fact that Praesos was 
the centre * of the people whom classical Greek tradition, 
as early as Homer, calls the " Eteo " — or True — Cretans, 5 
makes it certain that we are here dealing with a language 
that was spoken there before the end of the Bronze Age. 

It is significant, in this connection, to notice that 
Praesos does not appear to have been a centre of Minoan 
civilisation. That there was a shrine there is probable, 
for the worship of Zeus and Rhea at Praesos in Classical 
times preserves traces of the old religion. 6 The excava- 
tions, however, of the British School show that there 
was no considerable settlement there, still less anything 
that could be called a city, till the end of the Bronze Age. 7 
It is improbable that the Minoans themselves would 

1 Kretschmer, E.G.S. pp. 289-400. So Fick, V.O. p. 3 ; Hall, 
J.H.S. xxv. p. 324. 

2 For this I am indebted to my colleague, the Rev. D. Tyssil. 
Evans. 

3 B.S.A. viii. pp. 125-56, x. pp. 115-26. 

4 Staphylos, ap. Strabo, p. 475. 6 Od. xix. 170. 

8 Cp. R. C. Bosanquet in B.S.A. viii. p. 257, with R. M. Dawkins, 
ibid. x. p. 223, and Bosanquet, ibid. xi. pp. 304-5. 

7 R. C. Bosanquet, ibid. viii. pp. 231-70 ; E. S. Forster, ibid. 
pp. 271-81 ; J. H. Hopkinson, ibid. x. pp. 148-53 ; Forster, 
ibid. xi. pp. 243-57. 



152 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

then in their days of decay have founded a new city in 
the interior of Crete. The evidence from Knossos and 
Phaestos is rather that they maintained their old centres, 
though on a humbler scale. 1 

If, then, the Eteo-Cretans are not identical with the 
Minoans, what is the relation between the two ? It 
may perhaps be argued that they represent a native 
population that reasserted itself after the fall of the 
Minoans. The Minoan settlements in Eastern Crete 
were close to the coast, at Gournia, Palaikastro, Zakro, 
and this may be taken as pointing to the fact that the 
original inhabitants were driven into the interior, as 
the Greeks and Phoenicians in Sicily drove into the 
highlands the Sicans and the Sicels. We should, on 
this view, however, expect to find at Praesos traces of 
continuous occupation, whether or no it presented 
different features from the neighbouring Minoan civilisa- 
tion. For such occupation there is no archaeological 
evidence. Except for a Neolithic Cave burial, 2 there is 
practically nothing, even in the Tholos tombs, that is 
certainly earlier than the Geometric Age. 3 Considering 
the mass of pre-Hellenic remains on most Cretan sites, 
their absence here is significant. If the Eteo-Cretans were 
the natives of Crete, we must imagine that the centre at 
which they gathered, when the Minoan domination was 
over, was a spot that had never been previously occupied 
either by themselves or their masters. It is more probable 
that Praesos was founded by a new intrusive people, with 
no special aptitude for the sea, who established themselves 
in the interior of Eastern Crete in Late Minoan III., 
before the coming of the Greeks. If Professor Conway 



i 



2 



See pp. 49, 89, 100. 

Bosanquet in B.S.A. viii. p. 235. 

3 A few Kamares fragments in the above Skalais cave (ibid. 

p. 235). See pp. 234, 238, 242, 245, 248, 252. A gem, fig. 25, 

is not enough to prove the date of a tomb. See Hogarth's 

remarks in J.H.S. xxii. p. 90 ; also Hopkinson, B.S.A. x. p. 148. 



ETEO-CRETAN AND MINOAN 153 

is right in his view that their language is Indo-European, 
we may see a reason why the Greeks gave them their 
name. We know of no other non-Greek Indo-Europeans 
in the Greek mainland or the islands. The Greeks would 
have called the Minoans Phoinikes, 1 or Pelasgoi, or what 
not. They would have met men of their race elsewhere. 
These Italic Indo-Europeans alone were peculiar to 
Crete. What more natural than that they should call 
them the True Cretans ? " Eteokretisch " need not be 
the same as " Urkretisch," however easy it may be to 
confuse the two. 2 

If it is argued that this view is against the general 
impression of later ages 3 that the Eteo-Cretans represent 
the original inhabitants, it may be answered that this 
later tradition, as we find it for instance in Diodorus, 4 
is too obscure to warrant any inference from it except 
the extremely mixed character of the population. The 
traditions of Praesos itself, however, as preserved by 
Herodotus, 5 are in fact well explained by the theory we 
have been advancing. Praesos is regarded as distinct 
from the dominion of Minos, and is not involved in its 
ruin. As Minos represented the great days of Crete, 
and the temptation to claim kinship with him must have 
been considerable, the absence of such a claim on the part 
of the Praesians suggests a strong and ancient tradition. 

1 See p. 141. 

2 E.g. Hall, O.C.G. pp. 87-90, where he assumes that Eteo- 
Cretans are what we now call Minoans. There is nothing whatever 
in ancient tradition to connect the name Eteo-Cretan with 
Knossos. 

3 E.g. Strabo, p. 475. He thinks that both Cydonians and 
Eteo-Cretans are autochthonous, which is only another way of 
saying that both are prc-Dorian. 

4 iv. 60, v. 80. For an attempt to explain these passages, see 
R. Mcistcr, S.G.W. xxiv. pt. 3, pp. 63-4. 

5 vii. 1 70-1. Evans in J. M.S. xiv. p. 357, note 43, explained 
the tradition differently. He has not since that date (1894) 
commented on the matter. 



154 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

Their story, too, as to the double depopulation and re- 
settlement of Crete after the fall of Minos, combined 
with the archaeological evidence as to the later foundation 
of Praesos itself, outweighs the implication in Herodotus's 
narrative, 1 that the city already existed in Minoan days. 
If this also is on the authority of its inhabitants, it is 
natural, but not decisive, that knowing they were there 
before the Greeks, they should claim to have been there 
still earlier. It is possible, however, that it is an inference 
of Herodotus's own, and that the Praesians' real belief 
as to their own origin is contained in the remark directly 
attributed to them, that after the fall of Minos Crete 
was occupied by Greeks " among other people." * Did 
they realise that they themselves were these other people ? 
If, however, the -nth termination is Eteo-Cretan, as 
Professor Conway is inclined to suggest, 3 this theory that 
Eteo-Cretan was peculiar to Crete, and probably to one 
part of Crete, cannot be entertained. Corinth and 
Zacynthus, Cerinthus in Eubcea, Caryanda in Caria, 
Aspendus in Pamphylia, Laranda in Lycaonia, 4 show 
that the people who named them first must at one time 
or another have occupied both the Greek and the Asiatic 
coast. If we believe that these people were Indo-Euro- 
peans, we must suppose that, before the coming of the 
Greeks, an Indo-European race with Italic affinities 
dominated the whole iEgean area. The associations 
of some of the names in question, Tirynthian for instance, 
and Rhadamanthus, make it improbable that they are 

1 vii. 170. Xeyerai . . . Kpr/ras . . . nduras nXrjv TloKi^viTicov re Kai 
Upaiaicou dniKopepovs . • . is 'Siicavlrjv . . . Into the racial history of 
Polichna and its neighbour Cydonia in the west of Crete 
(Thuc. ii. 85), we cannot enter in the present state of our 
knowledge. Tradition does not call them Eteo-Cretans. See 
Strabo, 475. 

2 Ibid. 171. is de rrfv Kprjrrjv iprjpooOelaav, cos Xeyovai IJ pdurioi, 
eo-oiKL^eaBai aWovs re dvOpconovs Kai paXiara "EWrjvas. 

3 B.S.A. viii. pp. 154-6. 

4 See the imposing list in Kretschmer, E.G.S. pp. 308-1 1, 402-4. 



ETEO-CRETAN AND MINOAN 155 

late intruders. Such Indo-Europeans must have played 
a leading part, if not the only part, in developing 
Minoan and Mycenaean civilisation. If, on the other 
hand, we accept as more probable the view that regards 
Indo-Europeans of any kind as appearing comparatively 
late in the history of the iEgean, we must conclude that 
Minoan and its continental neighbour Lycian were akin 
to the Central Asia Minor languages, 1 Vannic, Mitannian, 
and Hittite or Arzawa, 8 which stretch in a chain, north 
to south, from Armenia to North Syria. In both cases 
the givers of the -nth names cover the whole area, and 
there is no reason to imagine that they spoke a different 
language from the Minoans. 

An examination, however, of the evidence gives us no 
decisive reason for connecting the termination -nth with 
Praesos and its inscriptions. In the " Barxe " and 
" Nomos " fragments it does not occur among the twelve 
certain and eight probable terminations that Professor 
Conway acutely recognised, 3 and in the " Neikar " 
fragment the nearest thing to it is an apparent -entas. 4 
Though it is found, too, in Crete, as a place and name 

1 Both Kretschmer and Fick, op. cit., believe that a non-Indo- 
European Asia Minor tongue akin to Lycian once prevailed in 
Greece ; but the former (pp. 180-2, 408) places the intrusion 
of Indo-European into some if not all parts of the " Mycenaean " 
world before the end of Late Minoan II. Fick's date (p. 3), 
even for the incoming of the Indo-European Phrygians, is not 
much before 1000 b.c. H. R. Hall, O.C.G. pp. 94-7 and J.H.S. 
xxv. p. 324, takes a similar view to Fick as to the " Asianic " 
character of Minoan. 

2 For a good account of them see Sayce, A.C.I. 1907, pp. 160- 
86. His identification of Hittite with the language of the 
two Tell-cl-Amarna letters connected with the King of Arzawa 
(pp. 174-5) i s confirmed by H. Wincklcr, O.L.Z. Dec. 15, 
1906 (Sondevabzug, Wolf Peiser, Berlin, pp. 14-15), as the 
result of his excavations in 1906 at Boghaz Keui or Pteria in 
Cappadocia. 

3 B.S.A. viii. p. 141. 

4 Ibid. x. p. 120. See also my own note, ibid. p. 124. 



156 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

ending, it is not particularly associated with Praesos or 
the east of the island as a whole. Rhadamanthus and 
the Labyrinth belong to Knossos, and Puranthos survives 
in the modern Purathi, almost due south of it. 1 Of 
Surinthus we have no certain knowledge, but the nearest 
modern name to it seems to be Suri, 2 in the west of the 
island, close to Suda Bay. Other names in -nd or -th, 
in some of which the old term may possibly be hid, 3 are 
found all over the island, and not only in the east, in 
Praesos and its neighbourhood. That some examples of 
the termination should be found there would be natural, 
on the theory that it belongs to a language common to 
the whole island. That any should be found elsewhere 
is fatal to a theory that makes it peculiar to the east. 

The same remark applies to the connections that can 
be established between Crete and Phrygia. 4 Some of 
them are, so far as we know, common to the island, such 
as the word crixwQos, a mouse, with its analogy to Apollo 
Smintheus in the Troad. 5 Of the three that are local, the 
little island of Chrysa, south of Hierapetra, 6 might be 
included in the Eteo-Cretan district, but Mount Ida 
is west of Knossos, and Pergamon in the extreme west. 7 
The fact, too, that the Phrygians of Classical times were 
Indo-Europeans proves nothing as to the affinities of the 
place names of Phrygia. They may have taken words 

1 Steph. Byz. ad voc. Kiepert, Creta. 

2 Ibid. 

3 In Kiepert's Creta we find {a) in the East — Angathi, Epithi, 
(b) in the East centre — Lasithi, Psathi, Elunda ; (c) in the Centre— 
Zinda, Akhendrias ; (d) in the West — Arolithi, Marathi, Asphendu. 
I do not suggest that all, or indeed any, of these names are 
ancient, but merely that this line of research is not promising as 
a support for the connection of -nth with Praesos. 

4 Conway, B.S.A. viii. pp. 144, 145, 151, 154. 

5 Ibid. pp. 136, 145. The disc with 2MAP on it, picked up 
somewhere in the east of the island, hardly helps us. 

6 Ibid. pp. 139, 144, 145. 

7 Pliny, iv. 20, 59. 



ETEO-CRETAN AND MINOAN 157 

over from the language they found existing there, just 
as the Greeks did themselves. 

If, however, we turn to the supposed Italic character 
of the termination -nth, we find a difficult problem to 
deal with. There is no doubt that on both sides of the 
Adriatic there is a considerable group of words in -nt. 
Dalluntum, Salluntum, Agyruntum in Illyria, are paral- 
leled by Tarentum, Hydruntum, Uzentum in Calabria. 1 
How far have we a right to bring these words in -nt into 
line with those in -nth and -nd ? 2 If they are, in fact, 
the same termination, can they point to a common origin, 
to an original East Mediterranean tongue, or must there 
have been migration ? If the latter, must it have been 
from north to south, 3 or may there be something in the 
tradition that comes to us in Herodotus, of a colonisation 
of Calabria from Crete itself in Late Minoan days ? 4 
Archaeological evidence is rapidly accumulating as to the 
spread of Minoan civilisation on the East Coast of Italy 
and in the Adriatic at the end of the Bronze Age. 5 

These questions do not yet admit of solution. It is 
possible that the -entas of the Neikar inscription has 

1 Kretschmer, E.G.S. p. 260. 

2 As is done by Conway, op. cit. p. 155. Kretschmer, op. cit. 
pp. 402-4, apparently finds it possible to believe, in spite of his 
other views, that these words in -nt are Indo-European ; as also 
KokvvOos in Bruttium and 2a\vvdios the King of the Agraeans 
in /Etolia (Thuc. iii. 1 1 1 ). These two last point rather to a 
common East Mediterranean origin. 

3 As Conway, B.S.A. viii. pp. 155-6. 

vii. 170, Xeyerat . . . drro pep Kprjraiv ye veaSni 'irjuvyas Mecrcra7riovS' 

Cp. Pais's theory that the Messapians were allied to the Greeks 
(Storia d' Italia, i. 335 fL, criticised by Kretschmer, op. cit. pp. 
272-4). 

5 See above, pp. 34, 125. For L.M. III. vases at Tarentum, aswell 
as in the island of Torcello, close to Venice, see Dawkins, J. U.S. 
xxiv. p. 126. Curiously enough, he does not mention the passage 
in Herodotus. See, too, Gutscher, I.D.I.G. 1904, pp. 13, 20, for 
L.M. III. influence at Nesactium, in Istria, and Myres (Y.W.C.S. 
1907, pp. 26-7) for the same at Molfetta, north of Bari. 



158 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

a direct connection with the Illyrian words in -nt, and 
only an indirect one, or none at all, with the -nth forms 
that surround it. On this hypothesis it may still be 
possible to maintain the view suggested above, that 
Eteo-Cretan was an isolated intrusive language. If, 
however, we must connect with it the -nth words as a 
whole, we must ignore the archaeological evidence from 
Praesos, and regard Eteo-Cretan as co-extensive, at one 
time or another, with the whole of the East Mediterranean 
area. If we further maintain that it is Indo-European, 
we commit ourselves to a view, which we shall discuss 
in the following chapters, that Minoan civilisation is 
largely, if not entirely, of Indo-European origin. 

Meanwhile, it must be remembered that whether this 
Eteo-Cretan language be Indo-European is one question, 
from what date and how widely it was spoken in Crete 
quite another. 1 The discoveries, however, of Clay 
tablets in the Linear Script in the Little Palace 2 make 
it certain that, whether or no the Praesos language was 
the same as theirs, the Minoan language had not entirely 
disappeared even in Late Minoan III. 

In religion, too, as in language and art, there was 
continuity even to Late Minoan III. The earlier Aniconic 
elements had throughout the great periods maintained 
themselves side by side with a growing anthropomor- 
phism. Mr. Evans believes that the Snake Goddess was 
not the central object of worship in the Middle Minoan III. 
shrine, but the marble cross ; * and in the Late Minoan II. 
Royal Villa there was built a pillar room similar to that 
which marked the early stages of the Palace. 4 This 
parallelism survived the sack of the Palace. The Dove 
Goddess shrine, in which the double axes rising out of 

1 H. R. Hall, J.H.S. xxv. p. 324, when criticising Conway, 
has perhaps not sufficiently distinguished the two. 

2 B.S.A. xi. p. 16. Mackenzie's remarks in Phylakopi, p. 271, 
must thus be modified. 

3 B.S.A. ix. figs. 62-3, pp. 91-2. 4 Ibid. fig. 90, p. 150. 



MINOAN AFTER THE SACK OF KNOSSOS 159 

" Horns of Consecration " occupy a prominent, or even, 
in Mr. Evans's opinion, a central position, was used if 
not constructed in Late Minoan III. 1 The chief new fact 
to be noticed, during the course of this period itself, is 
the apparent recrudescence of a more primitive form 
of the same cult — grotesque fetish figures, which are 
merely natural concretions of stalagmite, replacing the 
beautiful porcelains of earlier times. 2 

That the wandering of peoples which made the iEgean 
the Greek world we know was not over till towards the 
end of Late Minoan III., is clear from several converging 
lines of evidence. We need not imagine that the end 
came suddenly, or that it came upon all parts of the 
iEgean at the same moment. The vague echoes which 
reach us from the XXth Dynasty Egypt of Rameses III. 
show us that at about the year 1200 B.C. " the isles 
were restless," * and that the shock of migration was 
felt in every quarter of the iEgean. For a long time 
past we may be sure that the Northerners had been 
coming, here in smaller bodies, there in larger, here 
peacefully assimilating the culture of the older people, 
there sacking and destroying ; in some places driving 
those among whom they came to win new homes in their 
turn by conquest of their kinsmen over-seas. The end 
of Late Minoan III. only marks the time when the old 
civilisation had been dinted with so many repeated 
blows that it had at last lost its shape and cohesion ; 
when the traditions of the great art of the royal houses, 
long growing fainter and fainter, had finally died away ; 
when the Egyptian records no longer hint to us of trouble 
in the iEgean, but, from at least the tenth century 
XXIInd Dynasty to the seventh-century XXVIth, 
totally ignore both its commerce and its peoples. 4 

1 B.S.A. viii. fig. 55, p. 97. 

2 Ibid. xi. fig. 4, p. 10. 3 H. R. Hall, B.S.A. viii. p. 183. 
4 As already stated (p. 98 ), we cannot yet determine exactly 

how far down into the XXIst Dynasty (1100-960) Late 



i6o THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

That Crete was markedly affected by the movement 
of peoples which issued in this result is clear from the 
witness of the Homeric poems. We find in them a sug- 
gestion of mixture of races in other parts of the ^Egean 
area, but nowhere is it so explicit as in the case of Crete. 
The island, indeed, is thought of as " the mixed land," 
by a perhaps only half -serious popular etymology. 1 It 
is the only place, too, in which the poems recognise the 
existence of Dorians. Just as the tradition which places 
Minos before Agamemnon is a vague memory of the fact 
that the great days of Knossos were prior to those of 
Mycenae, so here, too, we have evidence that Crete was 
a prize much fought over by the Northern raiders. 

It is possible that, in the sack of Knossos, at the end 
of Late Minoan II., we should see some such raid, although 
we have no evidence as to the direction from which the 
raiders came. Was it from the Adriatic, or from Thessaly, 2 
or from the Argolid ? 

Mr. Evans, who was at first inclined to overestimate 
the significance of the sack of Knossos, and ascribe to it 
the total overthrow of the old civilisation in Crete, is now 
so impressed with the remains of that civilisation which 
he finds existing in the next period that he goes equally 
far in the other direction and sees nothing here but " an 
internal revolution." 3 The fact that the old art, writing, 

Minoan III. stretched. The end may have come sooner in some 
places than in others. We have as yet found only one mention 
of an iEgean people, the Tchakaray or Zakaray, as late as the 
XXIst Dynasty, and that in its earliest years. See Hall, op. 
cit. Petrie, Hist. iii. pp. 197-201. 

1 Od. xix. 17O seq. Kp^rrj ris yen, eori . . . aWrj 8' aXXa>v yXwaaa 

nentynevr). Is R. Meister the first (S.G.W. xxiv. pt. 3, 1904, 
p. 63, n. 1) who suggested that there is a play on Kp^r*) (fce/xm^/it) ? 

2 See Andron, ap. Steph. Byz. p. 254, ad voc. Acapiov. The 
mixture of races to which he assigned it — " Dorians and Achaeans 
and the Pelasgians who had not set off for Tyrrhenia " — shows 
how cautiously we must use such traditions. 

3 Contrast M.R. March 1901, pp. 121, 131, with Times, Oct. 31, 
1905, and B.S.A. xi. p. 14. 



MEANING OF THE SACK OF KNOSSOS 161 

and religion still survive may prove that no considerable 
body of foreigners settled at Knossos itself after the sack. 
But the sudden lowering of the standard in art and in 
wealth, and the recrudescence of more primitive and 
popular religious beliefs, are much more naturally ac- 
counted for by a sudden and fatal blow from the outside 
to the sea power of the ruling race than by any democratic 
movement such as Mr. Evans suggests. Indeed, for such 
a movement bringing national decadence it would be hard 
to find a parallel in the whole of ancient history, and its 
existence at this period is from every point of view im- 
probable. 

There are indications, too, apart from Knossos, that 
there were changes in the ^Egean world at about this 
epoch. In the later third city of Phylakopi in Melos, 
the older type of palace, which resembles that of Knossos, 
is replaced by another mainland type, resembling that of 
Tiryns, with a central hearth in its Megaron, and no light- 
well at the back of it. 1 It is also at least a curious co- 
incidence that the word Keftian, which is used in the early 
XVII Ith Dynasty for the narrow- waisted Cretans who 
carry vases of the Palace stvle, falls after this period com- 
pletely out of use, and is superseded by various other 
tribal names belonging to " the peoples of the sea." 2 
We have here, perhaps, if we may use the names sym- 
bolically, the sea power of Minos succeeded by the sea 
power of Agamemnon ; and in the latter we may see a 
mainland form of the old civilisation, either forced to 
expand over-seas by pressure from the north, or itself 
already hardened and transformed by contact with its 
invaders, and holding a transitional position between the 
old culture and the new. If we may indulge in a further 
piece of symbolism that is perhaps as old as the event 

1 D. Mackenzie in Phylakopi, pp. 269-71, and fig. 49, p. 56. 
Contrast B.S.A. viii. figs. 29, 30, pp. 56-7 ; see above, pp. 79, 80. 

2 Hall in B.S.A. viii. p. 175. See above, p. 123 ; below, p. 202. 

II 



162 THE COMING OF THE GREEKS 

itself, Theseus has brought up the ring that Minos has 
thrown into the sea, " the splendour of gold on his hand." 
That fantastic story, familiar to us from the poem of 
Bacchylides, 1 may be an echo of the liberation of the 
^Egean. Alliance with the sea has been symbolised in 
some such way by many later Thalassocrats, from Poly- 
crates 2 to Aristeides and the Delian League, 3 from the 
days when Xerxes was so sadly misinterpreted in his 
efforts to conciliate the Hellespont, to the yearly marriage 
of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic. 4 

Whether the men who sacked Knossos themselves 
belonged to this kindred mainland form of the old civili- 
sation, 5 or whether they were an early wave of pure 
Northern blood, we cannot tell. The discoveries in 
Crete, by showing that the iEgean civilisation derived 
its inspiration from an island, and not the mainland, 
have, as we shall see again in the next two chapters, 
brought one result along with them. They have made 
it more than ever doubtful whether all parts of the 
iEgean were permeated, and made " Greek," at the 
same date, or in the same manner. 

1 Jebb in his comment on Bacchylides xvi. (xvii.) p. 226, says 
that the ring incident " looks like a free invention of poetical 
fancy." It is true that it is not certain that it is shown on any 
of the vases that tell the story, or even in Micon's painting of it 
in the Theseum (see Frazer, ii. pp. 157-8, ad. Paus, i. 17, 3) ; 
but A. H. Smith (J.H.S. xviii. p. 276) has convincingly shown 
that Bacchylides 's allusive and incomplete way of telling the 
story of itself shows that the ring is an old tradition, and not 
his own invention. 

2 Hdt. hi. 41. 

3 Arist. ' K6. ttoK. 23 ; Plut. Arist. 41. fivdpoi thrown into the 
sea. 

* See the illuminating article b3>- S. Reinach in Rev. Arch. 1905, 
pp. 1-14, to which I owe my point. 

5 As is held by D. Mackenzie in B.S.A. xi. p. 222. 



CHAPTER X 

CRETE AND THE NORTH 

After the balancing of probabilities that has obscured 
the last half of the preceding chapter, it is satisfactory 
to remember that in its earlier pages we achieved one 
solid result. Minoan civilisation as a whole was, we saw, 
a native growth, rooted in the soil, and Oriental in the 
sense that Crete itself was an integral part of the East. 

Even this conclusion, however, may be seriously 
modified by a question to which, up to the present, we 
have made but a bare allusion. 1 Are we to recognise 
Indo-European elements in the main current of Minoan 
civilisation ? Is it possible that it is of mixed origin, 
and that early in its history it had its obligations to the 
North, as well as to the South and East ? 

Language, which has proved an inefficient guide even 
for the end of the Bronze Age, will clearly fail us when 
we try to push still further back. If it be held that the 
Eteo-Cretan of Praesos was an Indo-European tongue, 
and that it was intrusive at the end of Late Minoan II. — 
and of both hypotheses we can only say that they arc not 
improbable 2 — we are no nearer to understanding the 
language or race of the Minoans. If we could accept the 
first hypothesis without the second, or neither the one 
nor the other, we should be near to answering our ques- 
tion ; but the data for deciding in either of these direc- 
tions arc quite inadequate. We must turn to physical 
characteristics, and ask if we can tell anything from the 
type of the people that we see represented on the monu- 

1 Pp. 154-5. * Pp. 15 1-8. 

163 



164 CRETE AND THE NORTH 

merits, and the measurements of the skulls that we find 
in their tombs. 

It must at once be admitted that the methods of the 
old anthropometry are at present out of fashion. The 
comfortable doctrine that you could sum up the racial 
differences between human beings by measuring the 
length and the breadth of their skulls, was sure in time 
to go the way of all simple but arbitrary classifications. 
First Professor Sergi of Rome brought confusion and 
advance into the science by insisting that the curve of the 
skull, the question whether it is ovoid or ellipsoid or 
cuboid, is of quite as much importance as the single point 
of ratio of length to breadth. 1 Then Professor Arthur 
Thomson of Oxford, following up the hints of earlier 
anatomists, suggested that this ratio of length to breadth 
might be altered, within the lifetime of a race, by change 
of food. 2 This is not the place to describe the ingenious 
experiments by which he has attempted to prove that 
heavy food, acting as a weight on the jaw, can make a 
skull dolichocephalic, while light food can do the reverse. 
His theories have, however, already been given a practical 
and historical application by Professor Petrie, who argues 3 
that the present brachycephalic inhabitants of Lombardy 
are the unmixed descendants of the dolichocephalic 
Scandinavians who settled there in the sixth century a.d. 
Environment, he believes, has in 1,200 years changed 
the longest-headed race in Europe 4 into the broadest- 
headed. 

1 M.R. 1901, pp. 215, 256, 263. So J. L. Myres in S.P. 1898, 
pp. 298, 299. 

- J.A.I, xxxiii. 1903, pp. 135-66, with Plate XXIII. I owe 
the reference to my colleague, Professor David Hepburn, M.D. 
See, too, his own papers in C.V.S.F. 1905, No. 2, pp. 22-3; 
No. 3, pp. 8-9. 

3 J.A.I, xxxvi. 1906, with Plates XIX.-XXVI. Published 
separately under title of Migrations. 

4 There is, however, a markedly broad-headed element in 
Scandinavia itself. Of twenty-four skulls examined by Professor 



CAN PHYSICAL TYPE BE MODIFIED? 165 

These particular conclusions are likely to arouse keen 
controversy, and the same may be said of Dr. John 
Beddoe's similar views on colour. His theory, 1 which 
is endorsed by Professor Petrie, 2 is that the colour of a 
race is not persistent through long periods if the en- 
vironment is changed, and that dark races become blond 
in cold climates, and blond races dark in warm. There 
is one obvious objection to Dr. Beddoe's theory, an ob- 
jection that is brought out forcibly in one of his own 
admirable colour maps. 3 The dark-skinned, dark-haired 
population of Wales and the west of Ireland is without 
doubt a survival that has persisted from the earliest 
times in defiance of climate, and is even now increasing 
its area at the expense of the intrusive blonds. 4 Yet, on 
Dr. Beddoe's theory, they ought clearly to prevail over it. 

Important, however, as these new theories are, it must 
be noticed that they are only damaging to a skull-record 
that is uniform. They give us a note of warning, if we 
are inclined to draw inferences from the fact that the 
modern population of the mainland of Greece is long- 
headed, 6 and that of Crete broad-headed. 8 If, in Crete 
and the iEgean world, we found a general or local uni- 
formity in Minoan times in one direction or the other, 
we might have reason to distrust the value of our record. 
In point of fact, however, the evidence all points to the 
fact that, from the beginning of the Bronze Age, long- 
headed and broad-headed people lived together side by 
side. The broad-headed element has, indeed, increased 

Hepburn (C.V.S.F. 1905, No. 2, pp. 3-31) fourteen were dolicho-, 
5 meso-, and 5 brachycephalic. 

1 J.A.I, xxxv. 1905, pp. 219-50, with Plates XVI. -XVII. 

3 Migrations, p. 31. 

3 Op. cit. Plate XVII. 

4 See op. cit. pp. 236-7. Also Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. pp. 144, 

145. 

6 Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. pp. 282, 283. See, however, his rather 
inconsistent passage on p. 79. 

6 Duckworth in B.S.A. ix. p. 355. 



166 CRETE AND THE NORTH 

by Late Minoan III., and it is thus made still more 
probable that there was invasion at the end of the pre- 
ceding period ; but the vital point is that it is present, 
though to a less degree, in both Middle Minoan and 
Early Minoan. In Late Minoan III. the eight Cretan 
skulls measured by Professor Sergi ■ and Mr. Hawes, 8 
are three of them broad-headed, with a cephalic index 
of 'So or over, four mesocephalic, and only one dolicho- 
cephalic, with an index below 76. 3 Dr. Duckworth's 
ossuaries at Palaikastro i give us evidence of a much 
more extensive character. He was able to measure 78 
skulls, 58 of men and 20 of women, and the Kamares 
pottery that was buried with them shows that they 
belong to Middle Minoan II. His measurements show 
that 633 of the men and 70^6 of the women were dolicho-, 
2b'i5 and 23*53 meso-, and 8*55 and 5*87 brachycephalic. 
From Early Minoan there is no such mass of evidence, 
but of the eight skulls that Dr. Duckworth and Mr. Hawes 
have measured from the glen of Hagios Nikolaos near 
Palaikastro 5 and elsewhere in Crete, 6 four are dolicho-, 
three meso-, and one brachycephalic. The broad-headed 
element at an early period is confirmed for other parts 
of the .Egean by a skull from the second city of Troy, 7 
while investigations undertaken by Greek archaeologists 

1 A. J. A. v. 1901, pp. 315-8. a B.S.A. xi. pp. 293-7. 

I have treated as dolichocephalic indices between -75 and 
•76, as this appears to have been done by those whose investiga- 
tions I am reporting, and it would be confusing to change their 
figures. The usual British method of classification, however, is 
to treat them as mesocephalic. See Hepburn, C.V.S.F. 1905, 
Xo. 2, pp. 4, 5, quoting Sir William Turner's memoir in the 
Challenger Reports. 

* B.S.A. ix. pp. 350-5. • Ibid. pp. 344-5°- 

6 Koumasa and Hagia Triada, ibid. xi. p. 296. 

' Myres in C.R. xvi. 1902, pp. 71, 93, 94, as against Ridgeway, 
ibid. p. 82. See also Boyd Dawkins, B.S.A. vii. pp. 150-5. 
It does not seem certain to what Minoan period the three long- 
headed Zakro skulls measured by Boyd Dawkins himself should 
be assigned. 



EARLY MIXTURE OF RACE 167 

in the islands l show that at a period which was at least 
as early, they differed much among themselves ; the 
broad-headedness of Paros, Oliaros, and Siphnos con- 
trasting with the long-headed Syros and the middle- 
headed Naxos. For Late Minoan I. and II. there is 
unhappily as yet no certain evidence, but it is interesting 
to notice that Mr. Evans considers that the Cupbearer 
is of the dark, curly-haired, but broad-headed type that 
is to-day familiar in Crete itself, in the Balkans, and in 
the Plateau of Anatolia or Asia Minor. 2 

The evidence of skull measurement as to an early 
mixture of race in Crete is confirmed by a curious feature 
of the cemetery of Zafer Papoura. Its hundred ex- 
cavated tombs, which all contained skeletons, though in a 
condition that is unfortunately too decomposed to be of 
use to the anthropometrist, can be divided into three 
distinct classes. There are square Chamber Tombs, 
with terracotta larnakes or sarcophagi, containing the 
bones ; 3 there are the Shaft Graves that we are familiar 
with on the Mycenaean mainland ; 4 and there are what 
Mr. Evans calls Pit Caves, such as we find in the East in 
Cyprus and Syria, in the South in Tunis, and in the 
West in Sicily and South Italy. 5 They are pits like the 
Shaft Graves, but deeper, and the contents of the grave 
are not directly at the bottom of the pit, covered by a 
slab, but are walled up in a low cave-like receptacle at 
the side of it. As the depth of the pits varied from 
about 8 to about 14 feet, ledges were fitted at the side by 
means of which one could let oneself down to the bottom. 

1 C. Stephanos in C.R.A.C. p. 225. Of Paros, etc., the word used 
in the French is Vhypobrachycephalie. Does this mean " slight " 
broad-headedness, or is it conceivably a misprint for " hyper-" ? 
No figures are given, but the compound " hypo-" does not at 
least seem to be used by British anthropometrists. 

2 B.S.A. vi. pp. 15-6; M.R. March iooi,p. 125 ; J. L. Myresin 
C.R. xvi. 1902, p. 71. 

3 P.T. pp. 3-10, figs. 1-5. 4 Ibid. pp. 1 1-5, figs. 6-10. 
5 Ibid. pp. 15-21, figs. na-i2b. 



168 CRETE AND THE NORTH 

These three classes of graves, as they are used at Zafer 
Papoura, do not mark different stages of culture. They 
are contemporary, and they are all three found in the 
earliest phase of the cemetery, that dates from Late 
Minoan II. 1 Nor are the topographical — or shall we say 
the geological ? — differences that are postulated by the 
divergence of type found on the actual site, or in Crete 
as a whole. The Pit Cave people must have originally 
developed their style of tomb in a flat country, where if 
a man wanted to have his secret sepulchral cell he had 
to dig it down vertically into the ground. This would be 
waste of labour in a hilly country like Crete, where the 
troglodyte instinct would more naturally be satisfied by 
burrowing horizontally into the hillside for a rock shelter. 2 
Such natural, or partially natural, caves or rock shelters 
have been found in Neolithic Crete at Praesos 3 and 
near Palaikastro, 4 and we see, from one of the examples 
that have survived to us, 5 that they were originally 
habitations of the living, and not tombs of the dead. 6 
An interesting question is whether the square chamber 
tomb, with the passage or dromos that led to it, is derived 
from these rock shelters. The rectangular stone- walled 
Neolithic house near Palaikastro 7 shows that in a stony 
country wattled huts are not necessarily the only early 
form of dwelling. On the other hand, the round Tholos 
tombs from Hagia Triada and from near Gortyna 8 show 

1 P.T. pp. 3, 133. 

2 Ibid. pp. 18-21. 

3 Bosanquet in B.S.A. viii. p. 235. 

4 Duckworth, ibid. ix. fig. 2, p. 346. 

5 Dawkins in ibid. xi. fig. 1, p. 262. There was here, at Magasa 
near Palaikastro, an artificial enclosing wall. 

6 See P.T. p. 18. 

7 Dawkins, B.S.A. xi. fig. 2, p. 263. The Neolithic houses 
excavated by Tsountas at Dimini near Volo are not described 
fully enough in C.R.A.C. p. 207, for any opinion to be formed 
as to their shape. See above, p. 56. 

8 See pp. 29, 30. 



THE ROUND HUT 169 

that by early Minoan times the round hut, 1 on which they 
were without doubt modelled, was in common use in 
Crete. At Sitia, indeed, Dr. Xanthoudides has just 
discovered 2 a farmstead, dating from Middle Minoan I., 
in which several rooms, divided by party walls of small 
stones and clay, are all enclosed by an elliptical wall about 
85 feet by 49. He plausibly suggests that here we have 
a survival of the old round hut, divided into rooms by 
party walls of wood and wicker-work. The important 
point for us to notice is that both round and 
square houses appear very early in Crete. Whether 
they imply different races, as the Pit Caves do, is open to 
question. There is at least no reason to associate the 
round hut with the Indo-Europeans, as Professor Tsountas 
is inclined to do. 3 It may have come from Libya, or it 
may be native to Crete, as it is to many other remote 
and unconnected parts of the world. The need for 
shelter is common to the human race and not only to 
those who live in a " rigorous climate " ; * and no form 
of it is more obvious and universal than the wigwam. 5 

We need not discuss here Tsountas's further ingenious 
suggestion 6 that shaft graves represent a people who 
originally were lake dwellers, with huts on platforms 
raised on piles. He would doubtless point to the base- 
ments of the Cretan houses as a support to his theory. 
Whether true or not, it does not affect our present argu- 
ment, except in so far that such a people must have 
come from over-seas. There may have been pile dwellings 

1 For the later history of the round hut, see an interesting 
article by E. Pfuhl in Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, pp. 331-74. He 
maintains that it survives in the background of Greek cult, 
e.g. in the Tholos of Epidaurus ; but that later it comes into 
prominence again, and culminates in the Pantheon at Rome. 

3 See pp. 29, 181. 

3 M.A. pp. 246-7. * Ibid. p. 248. 

5 See the mass of evidence for its wide diffusion in Africa in 
Ratzel, H.M. i. pp. 107-9, *& PP« 3°~77' 

6 See a good summary of it in Frazer, Pausanias, iii. pp. 158-9. 



170 CRETE AND THE NORTH 

wherever there were lakes or swamps, and not only in 
Central Europe. In summing up the evidence as to 
their diffusion, Ratzel remarks * that in Europe they 
" call for no artificial hypotheses as to specific pile- 
building races." 

That there were wanderings of peoples in the dim 
centuries that mark the close of the Neolithic Age is 
certain. It was about that time that the first Semites 
were passing up to the north-east to impose their language 
upon the Sumerian civilisation of Mesopotamia, 2 and the 
latest discoveries of pre-dynastic Egypt show that in it, 
too, there were movements from the south-east and the 
south-west. 3 As Professor Petrie has well remarked, 4 
the prevalent notion that in prehistoric times races 
were pure and unmixed is quite without foundation. 
Before the days of agriculture and the settled habits of 
advanced civilisation, there was more migration, not 
less. 

What the racial movements of the ^Egean were we 
do not know. In his latest remarks upon the subject, 5 
Mr. Evans talks of " Anatolian, South European, and 
perhaps Libyan elements " as contributing to the forma- 
tion of the Minoan race. We may take for granted that 
the dominant element belonged to the dark-skinned, 
long-headed Mediterranean race. Where the broad- 

1 H.M. i. p. in. 

2 See Hilprecht, E.B.L. 1903 ; Hall, J.H.S. xxv. p. 323 ; 
Sayce, A.C.I. 1907, pp. 67-100. E. Meyer, S.S.B. 1906 (pp. 
69, 107-15), has brought forward the revolutionary view that 
throughout early Mesopotamian history the North (Akkad) 
belonged to the Semites, the South (Sumer) to the Sumerians, 
although at different stages they influenced each other. The 
Sumerians, he thinks, were probably the later arrivals. His 
arguments are purely archaeological, being based on type of 
face, cut of hair and beard, costume, etc. It will be interesting 
to see the attitude of the Assyriologists. 

3 Petrie, Hist. i. 1903, and J.A.I, xxxi. 1901, pp. 248-55, with 
Plates XVIII. to XX. 

4 J.A.I, xxxi. 1901, p. 248. B P.T. p. 132. 



THE NARROW WAIST 171 

headed element came from we cannot tell. That it 
exists to-day in the highlands of Asia Minor, as well as 
In the Balkans, is in itself no proof that it was native 
there ; but there is no warrant for assuming that all 
broad-headed people came from the North, or that in 
race or language they must have been Indo-European. 
The Sumerians of Mesopotamia seem to have been 
themselves broad-headed, 1 and excavation has shown 
that there were such elements in the early population 
of Asia Minor. 2 Any attempt indeed to equate the 
words "broad-headed" and "Indo-European" is self- 
convicted, as it has to allow that the dominant element 3 
in one of the most characteristic of the Indo-European 
peoples, the Scandinavians, is longer-headed than any 
race in Europe. 

Skull measurement, then, does not tell us whether 
Minoan civilisation owed anything to the North. 
Can we learn anything from the type of figure repre- 
sented on the monuments, or from manner of life, 
as we see it in art ? 

Professor Petrie would answer 4 by drawing our atten- 
tion to the narrow Minoan waist, which, as we have 
seen, 5 is so characteristic that even the Egyptians re- 
cognised the fact. In his researches into the invasions 
of the Roman Empire from the North, he has come across 
a passage in Eunapius, 6 and another in Apollinaris 

1 Sayce, A.C.I. 1907, p. 73. E. Meyer, S.S.B. 1906, p. 90, 114, 
denies that they are hyperbrachy cephalic. But his own Plate VI. , 
a head from Tello, now in Berlin (p. 41), is without doubt brachy- 
cephalic, even if we consent to omit the " hyper." 

2 For Korte's excavations at Boz-Eyuk in Phrygia, see 
Ath. Mitt. xxiv. 1899, pp. 1 seq. and references ap. Crowfoot, 
J.H.S. xix. p. 49. It is sometimes called the " Armenoid " 
stock. 

3 See above, p. 164. 

4 Migrations, p. 20. 5 P. 94. 

6 Pp. 46—48 : espc. Kara be to fxeaov Sif rr(/>ry/ueVa {/TTCp <fii]aiv 

Apt (TTOTtXrjS TO. €UTOHa. 



172 CRETE AND THE NORTH 

Sidonius, 1 which state that the Goths in general, and 
King Theodoric in particular, were very tall men with 
long flowing wavy hair, prominent chests, and waists 
pinched in " like insects. " The description is, it may 
be granted, startlingly reminiscent of the Boxers from 
Hagia Triada and the Hunters from Vaphio. Yet it 
is rash, on the strength of such a resemblance, and the 
place names Gathaei in Arcadia, and Gutheion in Laconia, 
to suggest a " Gothic " invasion of the Jigean at some 
date before 1500 B.C. 2 

The narrow waist is in origin only an artistic conven- 
tion. 3 It was an inheritance, perhaps, from the fiddle- 
shaped idols of the Cyclades, 4 where the exaggerated out- 
line was an attempt to imitate life. Such an expedient 
is common to primitive art ; it is found, for instance, on 
the rude Dipylon vases of the geometric period. 5 In 
fully developed Minoan art it was in all probability used 
to give an impression of strength and agility ; it is 
certainly highly successful in doing so. There is a 
curious analogy from the Japan of the eighth century 
a.d. 6 which was not, I believe, invaded by Goths. An 
old man is singing what a gallant he was in the days of 
his youth, when maidens gave him fine blue silk girdles 
to make him gay, 

. . . and narrow girdles 
Of outland Kara fashion. 

As slim I was then 
As any wasp that soareth. 

It is consistent, however, with this view as to the con- 

1 Ep. i. 2, recedente alvo pectus accedens. I owe the references 
to Dr. T. Hodgkin. a Petrie, op. cit. p. 20. 

3 So D. G. Hogarth, Cornhill, March 1903, p. 327. 

* See e.g. Phylakopi, Plate XXXIX. Nos. 18, 19; 5.5. fig. 127, 
p. 128 (Tiryns). The Beastmen, it may be noticed, have markedly 
narrow waists; e.g. B.S.A.-xi. fig. 10, p. 18; J.H.S. xxii. fig. 12, p. 80. 

5 E.g. Perrot and Chipiez, vii. fig. 66 — Hall, O.C.G. fig. 61, p. 249. 

6 The Manyoshiu. F. V. Dickins, 1906, Oxford. Book XVI. 
Part I. No. 203. 



HEIGHT 173 

ventional origin of the narrow waist, to allow that the 
Minoans may in course of time have actually come to 
accept it as a badge of race. It was the regular way in 
which they saw themselves portrayed, while Egyptian 
men always looked quite different. The Egyptians, 
as we have seen, 1 accepted it in the same light. It 
is possible that the belief was fostered by attempts 
to imitate the athletic figure by an extra tightening 
of the girdle. It can hardly be a coincidence that the 
priest bearing the sistrum on the Hagia Triada vase 
has a waist that is distinctly not drawn in. It is an 
extra touch to denote that he is not a native Minoan, 
but an Egyptian. 2 

It would be more easy to answer the general question 
raised by Professor Petrie's suggestion, if we knew more 
about the height of the Minoans. If we can judge from 
the bones measured by Dr. Duckworth at Palaikastro, 
the average height in Middle Minoan II. was barely 
5 feet 4 inches, which is a good two inches shorter than 
that of the present broad-headed population. 3 There 
do not seem to be data for determining whether the 
broad-headed element at the earlier period was taller 
than the rest. 

There is no doubt that in some of the Late Minoan vases, 
especially the Boxer vase from Hagia Triada (Plate I.), 
we get an impression of tallness ; but it is difficult to 
determine how far we can press this, when it is absolute, 
and not relative to other natural objects. Our impression 
may be mainly due to the same desire to express a slim 
athletic figure that accounts for the narrow waist. The 
men on the Vaphio cups, who are clearly of the same 
stock as those on the Boxer vase, do not loom large 
in relation to their bull. On the second zone from the 

1 P- 94- 

2 P. 36. The naked men without the loin-cloth on the silver 

cup from Mycenae representing a siege have also normal waists 
(Gardner, N.C. p. 66). 3 B.S.A. ix. p. 355. 



174 CRETE AND THE NORTH 

top on the Boxer vase, this relative smallness of the 
human figure is still more accentuated ; yet it is due to 
the very artist who, immediately below and above, has 
given us the human types that impress us as so tall. 
It may be answered that the comparative smallness of 
the man who is being tossed by the bull is due to con- 
siderations of space ; the bull is the real point of the 
scene, and the man has to be got in anywhere, and even 
as it is, has almost trespassed on the zone above him. The 
argument is sound, but it applies equally to the other 
zones, where the men are the principal figures ; and we 
have as little right to infer tall men as enormous bulls. 
Where, too, two men are represented as differing in 
height, as on the Chieftain vase, 1 it is economy of space 
and the desire to fill the field that must be held account- 
able ; the sword-bearer is shorter, because there has to 
be room for his helmet. 

Another possible test for estimating height is suggested 
by Professor Ridgeway, 2 and at first sight seems a pro- 
mising line of investigation. If the back is made for the 
burden, the sword ought to be made for the hand ; and 
if we can judge ex ftede Herculern, we should be able to 
estimate the height of the warrior by the space left be- 
tween pommel and blade for his hand-grasp. On this 
principle Professor Ridgeway draws interesting com- 
parisons between the bronze swords of IVfycenae and the 
bronze and iron swords of Central Europe, and concludes 
that the latter were meant for a taller race. That the 
men of Hallstatt were, in fact, taller is likely enough, 
but it is doubtful whether we can prove it on these lines. 
It is in the first place difficult to draw inferences from 
different types of sword. If the pommel comes out 
sharply at a right angle to the part of the hilt grasped 

1 P. 38. 

2 E.A.G. i. pp. 304, 409, 415-6. Professor Ridgeway has 
kindly informed me that by " grip " he means in every case the 
length of space for the hand, not the thickness of the hilt grasped. 



TYPES OF SWORD 175 

by the hand, as it does in some of the Hallstatt examples, 1 
the space for the hand is restricted. If, on the other 
hand, the pommel is approached by a gradual curve, as 
it is in the Knossos swords, 2 the hand is able to spread 
upwards, and indeed naturally does so, as any one 
may prove for himself by holding a stick with this kind 
of top. The same argument applies to the lower curve 
of the hand-grip, where it abuts on the blade. The 
length of the hilt as a whole is also partly determined 
by artistic considerations. The long sword from the 
Chieftain's grave at Zafer Papoura was found side by 
side with a short sword, and was clearly used by the 
same man. 3 The reason that its hilt is longer is not 
because it was meant for a taller man, but because 
otherwise it would have looked out of proportion to the 
total length of the sword. Although, therefore, in point 
of fact we find that the hand would have had 3J inches 
space on the short sword from the Chieftain's grave, 
and 3f- on the long sword, 4 a length not inferior to that of 
many of the Northern bronze and iron swords, 5 it would 
be dangerous to infer that they were made for as tall a 
race. Nor without fuller knowledge of the type of hilt 
and pommel represented by the Mycenae swords that 
Professor Ridgeway quotes, 6 can we bring them into 
the comparison. 

In regard to the height of the Minoans, then, our 
position must be an agnostic one ; we cannot claim that 
on this score there is evidence as to infusion of Northern 

1 E.A.G. i. fig. 70, p. 414, Nos. 1 and 2. 

2 P.T. figs. 58-9, pp. 56-7. 

3 Ibid. fig. 53, p. 53. 

4 These are rough measurements taken from a combination of 
pp. 55-7 with Plate XCI. Mr. Evans does not himself enter 
into the point. 

5 Ridgeway, op. cit. 

6 E.g. the reconstructed hilt of 5.5. fig. 230, p. 233, has a 
pommel coming out at a right angle and allowing no spread for 
the hand. 



176 CRETE AND THE NORTH 

blood before the end of Late Minoan II. We should 
be led to the same position if we discussed certain other 
possible test points, such as the length of the thrusting 
sword. The daggers of the earlier periods grow naturally 
into the short swords and long swords of Late Minoan I. 
and II ; there is no change in the rapier type. 1 So, 
too, changes in the way of fastening the hilt to the blade 
need no foreign influence to account for them. The 
older style in which the handle was made separately, 
and riveted on, 2 was insecure. It was an improvement 
for fighting purposes to make the whole sword in one 
piece, so that the hilt was solid and could not come off 
in the hand. This change brought with it the making 
of a flange or raised border round the hilt to keep in 
position the gold or ivory overlay. Whether this flange 
went part of the way, 3 or all the way, 4 round the hilt, 
depended on artistic, and not on military considerations. 
To have the flange the whole way round gave you greater 
security for your valuable pommel, but no firmer grip on 
your sword. A glance at the eight Zafer Papoura swords, 
as figured together on one plate, 5 will show clearly enough 
that we have among them natural varieties, but no new 
type. The contrast to a group of Northern swords, as 
figured by Professor Ridgeway, 6 is striking. 

It is different with the appearance of the leaf-shaped 
cutting sword, broader at the centre of the blade than 

1 E.C. p. 9; P.T. p. 113. A different view is taken by J. L. 
Myres, C.R. xvi. 1902, p. 70, but before the Cretan evidence was 
accessible. 

2 P.T. fig. in, p. 107 = Plate XCI. No. 44b. 

3 As in P.T. fig. 110a p. 106 = Plate XCI. No. 44a. 

4 As in fig. 94, p. 84 = Plate XCI. fig. 95c This — a dagger — 
is the only example at Zafer Papoura. See ibid. p. 112. 

5 P.T. Plate XCI. 

6 Op. cit. fig. 70, p. 414. J. L. Myres, C.R. xvi. 1902, p. 72, 
claimed a Northern origin for the flanged type. This, however, 
is now against the evidence. See J. Naue, V.S. 1903, p. 10 seq., 
and references above. It was the broadening of the blade for 
cutting that came from the North. 



THE LEAF-SHAPED SWORD 177 

at either end, on the inventory Clay Tablets of Late 
Minoan II. 1 Here we have at last a point which we can 
claim with certainty as proof of Northern influence. 2 
It is a remarkable fact, however, that no actual sword 
of this type occurs among the two long swords and six 
short swords that were found at Zafer Papoura, 3 nor is 
it the type of sword carried on the Late Minoan I. Chief- 
tain vase. 4 Its appearance on the Clay Tablets may 
mean nothing but a detached piece of commercial enter- 
prise, or the fruit of a distant foray. 5 

That the foray may have been by Northerners into 
Crete, and not by Cretans into the North, is of course 
possible. There were catastrophes, as we have seen, 6 
in the history of the Palace, at the end of all the three 
Middle Minoan periods ; nor can we deny them earlier. 
Whether one or all of them were due to changes in the 
balance of power in Crete itself, or in the kindred iEgean 
world, we cannot tell. That foreign non-^Egean influ- 
ences were once or more at work is a priori quite possible. 
The important point to notice is that such intrusive 
elements were not sufficient to exercise a controlling 
influence. For this we can rely with safety not only on 
the general Oriental character of Minoan art, but on the 
Southern habits of the Minoan people. As has already 
been pointed out, 7 the loin-cloth, as the sole article of 

1 B.S.A. viii. fig. 54 b and c, p. 94. Mr. Evans does not 
mention them when discussing the Zafer Papoura swords in 
P.T., but he has kindly informed me that the Tablets are pro- 
bably Late Minoan II. 

2 P.T. p. 113; J. Naue, V.S. 1903, p. 12 seq., and Nachtrag, 
p. 92. 

3 P.T. Plate XCI. * See p. 38. 

5 See, however, below, p. 183. 

6 Pp. 58, 61, 84. 

7 Apropos the bronze statuettes from Tiryns and elsewhere, 
Hall, O.C.G. pp. 277-8, 308 ; Evans on label in Ashmolean. 
We need not here discuss the question as to how far other loin- 
cloths differ from those of the Minoans. (J. L. Myres on Helbig 
in C.R. x. 1896, p. 355.) 

12 



i;S CRETE AND MYCEX-E 

clothing, is an Egyptian custom ; and although the 
Cretan house differed from the Egyptian in the use of 
timber, and in the absence of the awning, which would 
never have stood the Cretan winds, 1 it is like it in having 
no fixed fireplace. 2 

Such considerations, however, do not apply with equal 
force to the Argolid and the Greek mainland in general. 
Before the discoveries in Crete, there was no danger in 
talking of the .Egean as a whole. What was true of one 
' Mycenaean " site, was presumably also true of all the 
others. When we had shown that Mycenaean" art 
was neither wholly Egyptian, nor wholly Asiatic, nor 
in any sense Phoenician, we had proved it to be the 
native art of the .Egean world as a whole. This is still 
the assumption that underlies many archaeological dis- 
cussions to-day. In reality, however, the question of 
the unit}* of the -Egean world is now reopened. There 
was nothing in the remains at Mycenae that could warrant 
the belief that it was the sole creator of ' Mvcenaean " 
art, and that the extension of that art to other parts of 
the JEgean was due to borrowing or importation. Crete 
dominates the -Egean in quite a different way. Its art 
is without doubt native to it, and its Oriental character 
is naturally explained by the err graphical position of 
the island. Its artistic development, too, is continuous, 
and for a period of time which at the lowest estimate 
exceeds one thousand years there are no considerable 
gaps in the series. Some of the stages in this develop- 
ment — the Polychrome Kamares pottery of Middle 
Minoan II. is a conspicuous example — are practically 
unrepresented on the mainland ; ■ while even in the 

1 B.5.A. viii. pp. 18, 19. 

- Ibid. vii. p. 24. Xoack, H.P. 1903, p. 34 

3 In Ath. Mitt-, xxxi. 1906. pp. 36S-9, it is stated that Dr. 
Sotiriades has just discovered at Drachmani (Elatea) in Phocis 
pottery allied to the Kami re 5 type. Till it is published we 
cannot be sure what this means. F:r its rare appearance at 
Tiryns, see above, p. _:. 



THE DOMINANCE OF CRETE 179 

islands the one exception is Melos, which came into 
specially close relations with Crete itself. 1 Some of 
the most beautiful objects of art, too, that have been 
found on the mainland, the Vaphio cups for instance, 
and the Palace style vases from Vaphio and Mycenae, 
are without a doubt importations from Crete. 2 Where 
are we to draw the line ? What are to be our criteria ? 

The question that is thus raised does not admit of an 
easy answer. It is clear that some of the arguments 
that were valid against Dr. Helbig's old view that " My- 
cenaean " art was an importation from Phoenicia 3 do 
not apply to the view that it was an importation from 
Crete. In Crete we have actually got a great artistic 
and manufacturing centre for stone carving, frescoes, 
pottery, porcelain, metal work, gems. The weakness of 
the Phoenician claim was that it could not be proved that 
Phoenicia was the original home of any such industries, 
whatever part it played in distributing their products. 
Another weakness that Dr. Helbig himself acknowledged 
in his own theory, that it only applied to portable objects, 
does not hold good in the present case. The Bull-baiting 
fresco at Tiryns, 4 and the Flying Fish fresco in Melos, 5 
were clearly carried out on the spot ; but there are few 
things that suggest more certainly the Cretan artist. 
Even the interesting point raised by Mr. Myres, 6 that the 
use of local clay implies the manufacturing of pottery 
on the spot, hardly avails us here. Even if artistic 
inspiration was entirely due to Crete, there would natu- 
rally be local imitation on a humbler scale ; and the 
connection of Crete with its neighbours would ex hypothesi 
be intimate and continuous, and there would be Cretans 
at work all over the yEgean. 

1 Pp. 14, 63, 85, 149. Phylakopi, figs. 126-33, PP- *49» r 5°- 
The Kahun pottery also does not affect the argument. 

2 Pp. 33t 87. * g. M . i8q6> 
4 S.S. fig. in, p. 120. 5 P. 20. 

8 C.R. x. p. 353. 



180 CRETE AND MYCENiE 

We must in any case grant that there are certain points 
in which Crete and the mainland definitely differ. 
Dr. Noack ■ has rightly called attention to the fact that 
the type of Palace that we find represented at Tiryns 8 
and Mycenae, 8 at the island of Gha in Lake Copais, 4 and 
in the Second City of Troy, B is quite unlike what we see 
at Knossos and Phssstos. There are, indeed, points in 
which Dr. Noack has been proved to be wrong. His 
attempt to contrast the number of columns that gave 
entrance to the Hall or Megaron on the mainland and in 
Crete 6 has been shown by Dr. Mackenzie 7 to be contrary 
to the evidence. Whether or no the Cretan Megara had 
two doors for their broad frontage, and the narrow- 
fronted deep Mainland Megara only a single door, they 
were not in point of fact in the former case on each side 
of a central column, and in the latter between a pair of 
columns. Cretan architects used for their Megara one 
column, or two, or three, indifferently. It is also un- 
fortunate that Dr. Noack, at the end of his book, 8 ac- 
cepted Dr. Dorpfeld's view that the mainland type of 
Megaron can be found in the later stages of the Cretan 
Palaces. Even if that view had been justified by facts, 
it would not have strengthened Dr. Noack's general 
position ; and as it is conclusively disproved, 9 there is 
the danger that it may appear to involve in its downfall 
what is not in reality bound up with it. 

A solid result that remains from Dr. Noack's investi- 
gations is that the Mainland Palace was developed out 

1 H.P. 1903, pp. 1-36. 

2 Ibid. fig. 3, p. 7 ( = S.S. Plan IV. p. 132). 

3 Ibid. fig. 4, p. 8 ( = 5.5. Plan V. p. 298). 

4 Ibid. fig. 9, p. 19 ( = B.C.H. xviii. 1894, Plate XI.). Noack 
identifies it without hesitation with Arne. De Ridder {B.C.H. 
xviii. p. 309) was less confident. 

5 Ibid. fig. 8, p. 16 ( = Dorpfield, T.I. i. fig. 23, p. 81 ; 5.S. 
App. Plan VII. p. 348). 

6 H.P. p. 9 seq. 7 B.S.A. xi. pp. 186, 196. 
8 H.P. pp. 90-1. 9 See pp. 78-81. 



TYPES OF PALACE 181 

of a narrow-fronted, one-roomed house. 1 So persistent 
was the tradition of the single big living room, with its 
vestibule or ante-room leading into it, that when life 
got more complicated, and there was need for more 
rooms, the desired result was attained, not by altering 
the plan, but by repeating it one or more times over, 
and joining the various " suites " by passages. The 
simplest form of Greek Temple is a direct descendant of 
this " Mycenaean " Megaron. 2 

The Cretan Megaron, on the other hand, with its 
broad front, was shown by Noack to be akin to the Oriental 
house, as found in Egypt and Syria. 3 We may go 
further, and see from the many-roomed houses of the 
people at Palaikastro * or Vasiliki, 5 that the one living- 
room was never the rule in Minoan Crete. It is possible 
that Dr. Xanthoudides's suggestion as to the significance 
of the farm at Sitia 6 may give us the clue to the differ- 
ence. The original round hut, or rectangular stone 
house, may in Crete have been divided up, almost from 
the start, by party walls. It may be from this custom 
that there developed the many irregularly grouped 
rooms, leading freely one into the other, that are the 
direct prototype of the Palaces of Knossos and Phaestos. 7 

There is a further point in which the mainland type, 
except at Gha, differs from the Cretan. There is a fixed 
hearth in the centre of the Hall. The difference is without 
a doubt due to a need for warmth. Is the climate of 
Greece itself inclement enough to have created the need, 
or must we imagine that it is an inheritance from a more 
Northern home ? 8 

1 H.P. pp. 19-27. 2 Ibid. p. 27. 

3 Ibid. pp. 28-34. 

4 E.g. Bosanquet, B.S.A. viii. fig. 23, p. 310, House B. 

5 Seep. 57. 6 See pp. 29, 169. 

7 See pp. 5, 28. 

8 Noack takes the latter view (op. cit. p. 35), but quotes for the 
former the following interesting passages from the Odyssey : 
xiv. 457, 475-6, 518, 529-30; xix. 64. 



182 CRETE AND MYCENAE 

In regard to the distinctive appearance and habits 
of the mainland " Mycenaeans/' we know but little, 
except that they often wore beards, while the Minoans 
shaved. 1 Gems and frescoes and gold cups are all 
suspect, as coming from Crete. The Warrior Vase 
from Mycenae * and two vases from Tiryns with naked 
rudimentary figures 8 date almost certainly from the 
end of Late Minoan III., and do not come into the argu- 
ment. The men defending the city on the silver cup 
come from the Shaft Graves on the Acropolis of Mycenae, 4 
and belong to a much earlier period. The naked figures 
without loin-cloth or flowing hair or narrow waist, the 
cylindrical shield, 5 and the conical tasselled cap, 6 are 
all points on which we need further light. Yet the 
trees are olive-trees, and a figure-of-eight shield, used 
as a handle rivet, reminds us we are in Minoan environ- 
ment. In spite, too, of the rudeness of the representation 
of the human figure, the masonry of the city is more 

1 P.T. pp. 116-7. I n his attempt to distinguish Sumerians 
and Semites in Babylonia, E. Meyer (S.S.B. 1906, pp. 9-1 1, 
21-6, 42, 54, 80), makes much — perhaps too much — of this 
criterion. 

2 S.S. figs. 284-5, pp. 281-2. 

3 Ibid. figs, and pp. 13 1-2. The two men in the second of these 
have a tail which is either an attempt to represent the loin-cloth 
or a skin thrown over the shoulders. 

4 Grave IV. ; see Gardner, N.C. p. 66, Frazer, Pausanias, 
iii. p. in; originally published by Tsountas, 'E$. 'Ap^. 1891, 
Plate II. 2. 

5 Seen also on the ring found in the same grave, 5.5. fig. 
and p. 221. It is also carried by the armed God in the clay 
Seal impression from Knossos, B.S.A. ix. fig. 38, p. 59. 

6 A peaked hat without a tassel is worn by the God on the 
seal mentioned in the preceding note, and also by the Goddess 
on another seal from Knossos {ibid. fig. 37), and on some from 
Hagia Triada {ibid. p. 60). For Evans's remarks on the " Hit- 
tite " character of such a cap, see J.H.S. xxi. p. 125. In denying, 
however, that it was ever worn by a " Mycenaean," Hall {O.C.G 
p. 308) overlooked the silver cup. 



THE LEAF-SHAPED SWORD 183 

regular than that of Mycenae and Tiryns, 1 and suggests 
that of Knossos itself, or the walls of the Sixth City at 
Troy. 2 

The naked figure, without loin-cloth or flowing hair 
or narrow waist, occurs on two other early objects from 
Mycenae, the Stone Slabs from over the fifth Shaft 
Grave. 3 Their art is so rude that we can infer nothing 
from this nudity as to what their makers wore or did 
not wear in actual life ; as has been well remarked, 4 
nudity is the original form under which all nations, in 
the beginnings of their art, portray the human figure. 
It is more significant that one of these figures carries the 
very type of leaf-shaped sword or dagger that we noticed 
on the Clay Tablets of Late Minoan II. He is a man on 
foot, who is being charged and speared 6 by a man on a 
chariot. If, as seems to be the case, no actual weapon 
of this broadsword type has been found at Mycenae, 
any more than in the Zafer Papoura Cemetery, is it 
possible that it is given this man in character, as a 
representative of the invaders from the North ? The 
charioteer's sword, whether of design or not, is broad 
at the hilt, but it tapers sharply, and is distinctly of the 
rapier type. 

1 So A. Lang, H.A. 1906, p. 85. 

2 Dorpfeld, T.I. i. Beilage 20-2, pp. 136-7, 144. 

3 5.5. figs. 145-6, pp. 1 70-1. 

4 F. Poulsen in J. D.A.I, xxi. 1906, p. 207. 

5 This is almost certainly the correct view. See 5.5. p. 173. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA AND 
CENTRAL EUROPE 

Before we sum up the results of this line of argument, 
it will be well to describe certain discoveries, made outside 
the x^gean area, to which it is mainly due that the 
relation of the Minoan civilisation to the North is now 
a burning question. 

It has been known for many years ■ that pottery of an 
advanced character has been found in Central Europe 
in what is apparently a Neolithic environment. The 
evidence, however, has of late rapidly accumulated, and 
the inferences that have been drawn from it by Dr. 
Hubert Schmidt 2 and Professor von Stern 3 vitally affect 
our conceptions as to the origin of iEgean culture. The 
finds extend over a huge area, which at its northern 
limit is nearly nine hundred miles from east to west. 
The north-eastern point is in the district of Tchernigof, 
north-east of Kief in South Russia, 4 and the area stretches 
to the west at least as far as North Bohemia. 5 A point 
at the same latitude between the two, but nearer Russia 
than Bohemia, is found on the Upper Dniester in 

1 E.g. Wosinsky's work on Lengyel was published as long ago 
as 1888. 

2 Z. /. Ethnol. 1903, pp. 438-69; 1904, pp. 608-56; 1905, pp. 
91-113. 

3 P.K.S.R. 1905. It is published in duplicate in Russian and 
German bound up together. 

4 Ibid. p. 73. Mr. Chwoiko's excavations. 

5 Hoernes, N.K.O. 1905, figs. 189-95, P* 7 2 - I n ibid. figs. 
216-7, P* 86, there are elementary spirals and concentric half- 
circles from Neolithic pottery as far west as Wiesbaden and 

184 



THE NEOLITHIC SPIRAL AREA 185 

Galicia. ' This long northern line may be considered as the 
base of a triangle whose sides run southwards towards 
an apex in the Mgean Sea. On the east the line of the 
finds runs south-east through Podolia and Bessarabia 2 
into Roumania, 3 where it is joined by an east central 
line that comes down through Bukovina * and Tran- 
sylvania. 5 In the extreme west the finds come down 
through the Attersee and Mondsee in Upper Austria 6 
to Trieste, 7 and thence to Bosnia. 8 In the centre a line 
stretches from Lengyel, south of Buda Pesth, 9 down into 
Servia. 10 That the western Bosnian line cannot yet 
be extended down the Adriatic may only be an accident 
which future excavation will rectify, but the eastern 
line has a natural extension at Jamboli in Eastern Roume- 
lia, 11 in the First City of Troy, 18 and in the Necropolis 
of Jortan, 13 on the Upper Valley of the Caicus in Mysia. 

Ilbenstadt in Germany. From his H.I.G. 1904, we imagine 
that Dr. M. Much would like to bring these into line in support 
of Schmidt's and Von Stern's views. 

1 Ibid. figs. 251-83, pp. 1 14-9, Horodnica and Bilcze. See 
Von Stern, P.K.S.R. p. 74. 

2 Von Stern's own finds at Petreny. 

3 Cucuteni, etc. (Von Stern, p. 77). 

4 Schipenitz in the valley of the Pruth (Von Stern, p. 77). 

6 Tordos (Schmidt, Z. f. Ethnol. 1903, pp. 438-69) and 
Kronstadt (Teutsch ap. Schmidt, ibid. 1904, pp. 637-43). Also 
Hoernes, op. cit. figs. 25-72, pp. 19-26. 

6 Hoernes, op. cit. figs. 123-35, pp. 51-5. 

7 Gabrovizza and Duino (Hoernes, op. cit. fig. 118, p. 48). 

8 Butmir (Hoernes, op. cit. figs. 1-7, pp. 7-10). 

fc Wosinsky, Lengyel, 3 vols. 1888-91 ; Hoernes, op. cit. figs. 19- 
22, p. 1 1 ; Von Stern, p. 75. 

10 Jablaniza or Jablanica (Hoernes, pp. 29, 30 ; W. Vassits 
and other authorities ap. Von Stern, p. 78, note 2). For the 
interesting Clay Figurines of female figures from Klicevac, 
see Hoernes, figs. 85-6, p. 31. 

11 Jerome in Rev. Arch, xxxix. 1901, pp. 328-49. 

12 H. Schmidt, op. cit. 

13 C.R.A.I. 1901, pp. 810-7. Description by Collignon of 
finds of Paul Gaudin. 



r86 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

The central line too seems to be continued in the Neo- 
lithic remains at Volo in Thessaly. 1 

It is not meant to suggest that the pottery over the 
whole of this area is of the same type. 2 It is indeed 
not easy to tell what some of the types are like, as few of 
them are published in colours, and the originals are 
scattered over half the museums of Central Europe. 3 
There is, to the best of my knowledge, not a fragment 
of the kind in any museum in Great Britain, except a 
few specimens of Professor Tsountas's discoveries at 
Volo, and even Athens has got nothing but this Volo 
pottery. The best representative collection is probably 
in the Natural History Museum at Vienna, and it is 
thither that archaeologists must make their pilgrimage, 
unless the museums of Central Europe, as indeed would 
be a most graceful act, send of their bounty to Athens. 
It will be necessary that some archaeologist who has the 
designs and processes of Minoan pottery at his finger- 
ends — if possible, one of the Cretan excavators them- 
selves — should go the round of Central Europe and make 
a careful study of the originals before any final opinion 
can be passed on them. The following account is given 
tentatively and with all reserve. It is not yet clear what 
are the principles of classification that correspond to 
differences of date and locality. We may agree, for 
instance, with Dr. Hoernes 4 that Dr. Wosinsky B is 
not justified in classing together all kinds of incised 
pottery with white filling, and regarding it as a true dif- 
ferentia ; but we must remember that Dr. Hoernes' s own 

1 Discovered at Dimini and Sesklo by Tsountas. For a short 
account see Von Stern, op. cit. pp. 82-3. 

2 So Von Stern, op. cit. p. 84, admits that in the western 
portion of the area the differences are more than the points of 
contact. 

3 E.g. Kief, Odessa, Lemberg, Szegzard, Klausenburg ( = Kolo- 
svar), Vienna, Sarajevo, the Louvre (finds of Jortan), and the chief 
museums of the Balkan states. 

* Op. cit. pp. 36-8. B LK. 1904. 



THE NEOLITHIC SPIRAL AREA 187 

distinction of ornament that covers the whole field of 
a vase, 1 and ornament that divides it into sections, 2 is 
not meant by its author to be decisive for our purpose ; 3 
and we may doubt whether Dr. Schmidt does not lay 
too great stress on this use of white paint on the 
flat. 4 

Certain points, however, emerge that are common to 
a great mass of the pottery concerned. It knows the 
use of painting on the flat, as well as of white filling for 
incised lines ; and it is ornamented, not only with recti- 
linear geometric designs, but with spirals of the most 
elaborate character. The graves in which the pottery 
is found are in most cases entirely free of any trace of 
metal. In only one case, that of the cemetery of Jortan on 
the Caicus, 5 are the metal finds numerous enough to prove 
that we are dealing with a civilisation that is in a stage 
of transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. 

Some of this pottery, too, is beautiful. The word 
can be used without exaggeration of the vases of Galicia 6 

1 His " Umlaufstil," pp. 7-31. 

2 His " Rahmenstil," pp. 31-45. 

3 Op. cit. p. 34. On p. 124, Dr. Hoernes rightly points out 
that many different factors — character of implements, dwellings, 
etc., as well as style of pottery — must be taken into consideration 
before questions of date and influence can be determined. How 
far his own distinction between the older Mediterranean plain 
dwellers and the later Indo-European mountaineers (pp. 124-6) 
is justified by the remains, can only be determined by further 
investigation. 

4 Though he objects to the catch-words (Schlagworten) Schnur- 
and Band-Keramik, his own insistence on the single point of 
Weissmalerei is just as one-sided. Cp. Z. f. Ethnol. 1904, p. 653, 
with ibid. 1903, p. 460. Curiously enough there is no white paint 
at Petreny (Von Stern, p. 58), and the designs are all dark on 
a light ground. 

6 C. R.A.I. 1 90 1, p. 814. See also Schmidt, Z. f. Ethnol. 1904, 
p. 648. For the uncertainty as to whether Troy I. was purely 
Neolithic, see below, p. 193. 

8 See Hoernes, op. cit, figs. 251-83, pp. 114-9. 



188 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

and South Russia. Professor von Stern's discoveries 
at Petreny in Bessarabia, admirably illustrated as they 
are in his coloured plates, show shapes and designs that 
are beyond anything that we are accustomed to associate 
with Neolithic culture. Sometimes the design is painted 
in black or violet-brown on the hand-polished surface 
of the clay ; more usually it is applied when the clay has 
already been covered with a painted slip, yellow-white, 
red, brown, or yellow. The design itself is sometimes 
yellow, or light red, instead of black or brown. If we 
may judge from the coloured plates, violet-brown on a 
light reddish-brown is the dominant combination. The 
design is generally monochrome, but in one variety 
black and red are used together on the same vase. 1 

Petreny is not only remarkable for its elaborate spiral 
designs. Its pottery differs from that of all the other 
Central European sites * in the fact that it is decorated 
with motives from the organic world. These are not 
only fir cones,* but figures of animals, such as a goat, 4 
a bull, 6 and, quite commonly, a dog. 6 In three cases 
we have actually the whole or part of a human figure, 7 
and two more are represented in the neighbouring finds 
of Mr. Chwoiko at Tripoljer, near Kief. 8 The repre- 
sentation of man cannot be said to be so successful as 

1 Von Stern, pp. 61-2. At Dimini one vase has a design in 
three colours, white, black-brown, and red (ibid, p. 83.) 

2 Ibid. pp. 63-4. Sayce, A.C.I. 1907, p. 47, mentions that De 
Morgan found animal figures on pottery of the end of the Neo- 
lithic Age at Susa, especially ostriches, as on prehistoric ware 
of Egypt. 

3 Ibid. Plates VIII. 1, XL 11, wrongly numbered in the text 
p. 64. 

4 Ibid. Plate XI. 12a, text p. 65. 

5 Ibid. Plate VIII. 3, wrongly numbered in the text p. 66. 

6 Ibid. Plates IX. 5, 8, 9, XI. 12b, wrongly numbered in 
the text p. 66. 

7 Ibid. Plates II. 3, IX. 4, 6, text p. 64. 

8 Ibid. p. 64. 



CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE /EGEAN 189 

that of bull and dog ; the latter are treated in a free and 
vigorous naturalistic spirit. 1 

It was pure art that distinguished these South 
Russians. They were not an industrial or scientific 
people, and had made little progress in material civilisa- 
tion. 2 They lived in rectangular clay huts, strengthened 
perhaps at the sides by palings and hurdles, and covered 
with a roof of wood and clay. Such at least were their 
houses of the dead, and they were probably modelled 
on those of the living. 3 They cremated their dead, and 
placed the ashes in an urn within a clay hut, but Pro- 
fessor von Stern believes that they had only just passed 
out of the stage of burial interments. 4 The sole trace 
of metal found among all the graves was one pure copper 
axe, and they had not made much progress even in 
the shaping of their stone implements and weapons. 6 
Artistic, too, as was their pottery, they had never learnt 
the use of the potter's wheel. 8 

What is the relation of this Neolithic civilisation to 
the early art of the Mge&n ? There are three possible 
theories. The first, which is supported by Dr. Wosinsky, 7 
is that the northern culture is derived from the iEgean. 
In this case we must imagine that Neolithic Austria or 
Russia means chronologically a very different thing 
from Neolithic Crete. There is no doubt that Crete and 
the islands of the Mgesm had not reached during their 
Neolithic period anything like the same state of artistic 
development that we find in South Russia or Galicia. 

1 Von Stern, p. 66. 2 Ibid. p. 7 1 . 

3 Ibid. pp. 53-4. No human habitations have been found. 

4 Ibid. pp. 71-2. The offerings placed in the grave are so 
numerous that it is probable that the feeling that the dead 
needed them was still a living belief. Besides this, Chwoiko has 
found near Kief pottery of a similar type often with half -burnt 
skeletons, and in from 2 to 3 per cent, of the graves with unburnt 
skeletons. 

5 Ibid. p. 68. 6 Ibid. p. 71. 
7 I.K. 1904, i. pp. 157-70. 



190 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

Even if we do not necessarily interpret the absence of 
the spiral as proof of a more primitive civilisation, 1 we 
must agree that the designs of the pottery are in every 
respect of a ruder type. In Crete, as we have seen, 8 
the invention of painting on the flat does not come in 
till Early Minoan I. The absence of metal must, on this 
hypothesis, have kept Central Europe in the Neolithic Age 
centuries and centuries after the iEgean had developed 
the free use of bronze. There is nothing improbable in 
this supposition. 3 The real difficulty in Dr. Wosinsky's 
view is that, except for the spiral and the pottery marks 
that we find in Transylvania, 4 the North would seem 
to have obtained nothing from the South that was 
material or portable, but only that most impalpable 
of things, the artistic spirit. In all its mass of pottery, 
there is apparently no fragment that is an import from 
the iEgean. 5 If we can grant that the spiral, once seen, 
would be reproduced, even when unaccompanied by many 
specimens of the vases that it decorated, it is strange 
that knowledge of the potter's wheel did not follow in 
its train, when the trade route was once opened. The 
absence of copper and bronze would have to be accounted 
for on the ground that metal was still so valuable in the 
^Egean that it could not be spared for export. 

Though the difficulties that this view involve are 
considerable, they are less than those of the rival theory, 
supported by Dr. Schmidt and Professor von Stern. 6 

1 See above, p. 52 ; below, p. 196. 2 Seep. 47. 

3 See Hoernes, op. pit. p. 12, note 1. 4 See pp. 149, 196. 

5 The native character of the pottery is also shown by the 
discovery at Petreny of lumps of red ochre which was used as 
colouring matter. Von Stern, p. 87, n. 2. Cp. J. L. Myres on the 
fiiXros or " red earth " of Cappadocia in J.A.I, xxxiii. 1903, p. 394. 

6 And also by Dr. M. Much, H.I.G. 1904. Von Stern places 
the exact point of origin, the centre of the true Indo-Europeans, 
in South Russia, Schmidt in Hungary and Austria, and Much in 
Germany. We have no right to smile until we have found 
Neolithic spirals in Wales — and resisted the temptation ! 



INDO-EUROPEAN THEORY 191 

They believe that the solution of the question is to be 
found, not in looking to the South, but in looking to the 
North and the first wanderings of its peoples. Trade 
routes are now not in question. The date is e% hypo- 
thesi too early for intercourse, except by the method 
of migration. South Russia or Central Europe was the 
home of the original Indo-European race, which unaided, 
and on its own merits, evolved the spirals of Petreny 
and Galicia. At the end of the Neolithic Age they 
moved southward across the Danube and the Balkans 
into Thrace. There they divided into two streams. One 
crossed the Hellespont and colonised Troy, the other moved 
down the coast of the Greek mainland. One or the other 
crossed into Crete, and created the Minoan culture. 

The strong point about this theory is that it professes 
to equate Neolithic with Neolithic, and Bronze with 
Bronze. It does not force us to imagine that the Bronze 
Age began much earlier in the ^Egean. On the other 
hand the resemblances between the two potteries, so 
far as they exist, are accounted for even less satisfactorily 
by a theory of migration than by a theory of trade routes. 
At what exact period could the migration have taken 
place ? If we claim as a proof of it the fact that rude 
sub-Neolithic vases of the First City of Troy l and Melos 8 
are like equally rude vases from South Hungary, 3 we 
must place it very early indeed, before Early Minoan I. 
In this case, what of the spiral ornament and fine artistic 
spirit of Petreny ? Did the Indo-Europeans forget their 
beautiful designs for some hundreds of years ? There 
is nothing in Melos or Crete as good as Petreny, from 
the purely artistic point of view, till Early Minoan III. 
or Middle Minoan I. 

1 Schmidt in Z. /. Ethnol. 1904, fig. 32, p. 655. 

2 Ibid. figs. 33-4, pp. 655-6; Edgar in Phylakopi, p. 83, and 
fig. 69, p. 84. They are wide-necked jars with hollow feet and 
handles for suspension. 

3 From Lengyel, etc. Schmidt, op. cit. figs. 30-1, pp. 654-5. 



192 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

If, however, we lay stress on the resemblance of 
Petreny to the beginnings of the finer Minoan ware, 1 
we must shift our ground, and place the migration late, 
when the Bronze Age of the iEgean was well advanced. 
Our Troy, Melos, and Lengyel analogies will have to 
be explained away. How is it, too, that a people who 
were, ex hypothesi, in a Neolithic state of culture, con- 
quered the bronze weapons of the Mgea.n ? It is against 
analogy that art should conquer weapons. The one 
wave of Indo-European conquest that we are certain of, 
was brought about by the iron weapons of an inartistic 
people. Are we to imagine that the new culture was 
welcomed without conquest, as England absorbed the 
industries of the Flemings or the Huguenots ? Or 
does Troy mark the point where our South Russians 
learnt their war — and forgot for the time their art ? 
It is strange that the half-way houses that mark their 
progress southward are on a lower level of artistic 
development than the point from which they started, 
as well as from the point which they finally reach. 
They must have left the inartistic members of their 
population in their settlement all down either coast, 
and have kept the artists together till they reached 
Crete ! 

An ingenious way out of this dilemma is to suppose 
that the Indo-Europeans invaded the South before their 
art had reached its full development in its original 

1 See e.g. the fine designs of Von Stern, Plate IX. 2 and 3. It 
is the Middle Minoan II. Kamares vases that remind Von Stern 
(p. 86) of Petreny, not the ruder ware. Schmidt, on the other 
hand, when in Z. f. Ethnol. 1904, pp. 653-5, ne figures the " Fruit- 
stand " vase of Knossos as fig. 28 along with figs. 26, 29, from 
Hungary and fig. 27 from the First City of Troy, does not realise 
that Kamares ware is somewhat distinct in date from Neolithic. 
The vase is figured in J.H.S. xxi. fig. 15, p. 88, and classed as 
Middle Minoan II. by Mackenzie, ibid. xxvi. p. 250. At Knossos 
the type does not appear earlier than Middle Minoan I. See 
ibid. Plate XI. No. 12. 



INDO-EUROPEAN THEORY 193 

home. 1 The sub-Neolithic vases of Melos were on this 
view derived from those of Hungary, but the Galician 
and South Russian spirals were worked by later genera- 
tions who had remained at home. This is not really a 
solution of the difficulty. If the South Russians were 
able in their own home to advance to the art of Petreny 
before the end of the Neolithic Age, how was it that their 
kinsmen, whose later history as creators of the ;Egean 
civilisation shows them, ex hypothesi, to be the most 
progressive and artistic part of the race, did not reach 
the same stage till the Bronze Age was far advanced ? 
In material civilisation they apparently made quick 
progress. The three-roomed houses of Volo 2 are an 
advance on the clay huts of South Russia. The settle- 
ment at Jortan on the Caicus knew bracelets and knives, 
arrow and lance heads of bronze. 5 It is uncertain 
whether even the First City of Troy is purely Neolithic. 4 
Yet the pottery of all these places, as well as the begin- 
nings of Early Cycladic and Early Minoan art, is behind 
that of Petreny. Can Petreny really be earlier ? It 
will, perhaps, be answered that Petreny may have re- 
mained Neolithic while its kinsmen were learning the 
use of metals, so that chronologically it may be equated 
with Early Minoan III. or Middle Minoan I. ; but, if so, 
the original position that we have no right to equate 
Bronze with Neolithic is given away, and the whole 
argument falls to the ground. In particular Dr. Schmidt 
thus obtains no assistance from the elaborate comparisons 
he himself previously drew c between the spiral ornaments 
of the Bronze Age of Central Europe and those of the so- 

1 So Schmidt in Z. f. Ethnol. 1905, p. 113, which must, I 
presume, be taken as his matured opinion on the matter. 

2 Tsountas, C.R.A.C. p. 207. They had not, however, yet 
learnt there the use of the potter's wheel {ibid. p. 208). 

3 Collignon in C. R.A.I. 1901, p. 814. 

4 A. Gotze in Dorpfeld's T.I. i. p. 325. So Mackenzie, 
Phylakopi, p, 242, note 1. 

5 Z f. Ethnol. 1904, pp. 608-34. 

13 



194 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

called " Treasure of Priam,' ' and other jewellery from the 
third period of the Second City of Troy. His argument 
was that the Bronze Age of Central Europe is the earlier, 
and that a fortiori its Neolithic Age is earlier still. If, 
however, Petrenyis thus earlier than the Treasure of Priam, 
and yet cannot be equated with the First Minoan periods, 
the only result is to push the date of the Trojan jewellery 
still later. This may be quite sound, as we shall see 
shortly, but it does not help Dr. Schmidt's position. 

There is a third theory, suggested by Dr. Hoernes, 1 
which is much more probable than the second, and on 
the whole more probable than the first. What we are 
dealing with may not be due to trade routes or migration, 
either in one direction or the other, but to the parallel 
development of various sections of a kindred race. If 
we merely had the Neolithic finds at Volo to deal with, 
this would without doubt have been our answer. The 
Mediterranean race can be just as naturally looked for 
in Thessaly or Thrace as in Italy or Spain. Is there 
any reason to think that it did not extend as far north 
as South Russia and South Central Europe ? It is only 
the same latitude, after all, as Wales and Western Ireland, 
where the dominant type is similar to what we meet 
with in Greece or Italy. We may notice, too, that 
Professor Morris Jones's acute study 2 of the pre- Aryan 
elements in the Welsh and Irish languages, and the 
remarkable resemblances he has traced between their 
syntax and that of Berber and Egyptian, support the 
evidence of physical characteristics. It was natural that, 
the farther the race spread from its original home, the 
weaker it grew, and the less it profited by the advances 
in material civilisation that were being made by those 
of its members who had kept in touch with the empires 
of the East. The pure artistic spirit, however, was in 

1 Op. cit. pp. 126-8. He does not develop the idea at any 
length and is not responsible for the arguments here used. 

2 Ap. Rhys and Jones, W.P. pp. 617-41 ; see also ibid. pp. 1-35. 



MEDITERRANEAN RACE THEORY 195 

the blood of the race, and was independent of material 
progress. This accounts for the fact that the civilisation 
of South Russia fell an early victim to its Northern 
neighbours. It disappears at the end of the Neolithic 
Age, and leaves no traces behind it. 1 It also explains 
why its pottery is, in fact, neither the parent nor the 
child of that of Crete, but shows points of resemblance 
and difference with more than one stage of Minoan art. 2 
It is an independent development, in which an artistic 
people who were out of the reach of metal spent their 
whole creative powers. 3 It is possible that it worked 

1 Von Stern, p. 87. As suggested above, this may have been 
after the Bronze Age had long begun in the Mgesm ; but it was 
not necessarily so, if it was an independent development. 

2 The finest spiral designs of Petreny have no analogy so 
startling as the " late local pottery of the Mycenaean period " 
in Melos. Cp. Von Stern, Plate IX. 3, with Phylakopi, Plate 
XXVI. 1. The technique, however, is in the latter case quite 
different, the spiral being in the light yellow ground colour of the 
clay slip, while the background is painted in in black. See Edgar, 
ibid. p. 132. 

3 Further researches into the Neolithic Age of Asia Minor and 
Central Asia may throw light on certain aspects of the art of 
South Russia. As Sayce remarks (A.C.I, p. 39), the earlier 
excavations in Mesopotamia took no notice of pottery. For 
the Neolithic ware of Susa and Elam, see ibid. pp. 47-5 1 . Chantre's 
account of his discoveries in Cappadocia (M.C. 1898) is confused, 
and it is difficult to estimate how early some of his pottery is. 
Hall, O.C.G. pp. 314-9, makes the same remark about his clay 
tablets. A valuable paper by J. L. Myres (J.A.I, xxxiii. pp. 
367-400) on the early pot fabrics of Asia Minor suggests how 
much we should be indebted to its author were he to revise 
it in view of the new evidence ; e.g. in view of the mid-European 
finds, he could hardly now maintain, as on p. 388, that the 
spiral is the one feature of the Volo finds that suggests " iEgean 
tradition." For an account of the Pumpelly expedition and 
its discovery of a late Neolithic and Early Bronze culture at 
Asskhabad in Turkestan, see Schmidt in Z. f. Ethnol. 1906, pp. 
385-90. In the third stratum (Bronze Age) there are three- 
sided engraved stones, resembling in shape, though not in design, 
Cretan seal stones of the " Xllth Dynasty Middle Minoan II." 
type. For these, see above, Chapter V. 



196 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

out the idea of the spiral independently ; the view- 
that all artistic motives must be derived from a common 
centre is not founded on fact. An eminent authority 
like Dr. Hoernes believes that the idea of the spiral 
must be familiar to primitive peoples, before they 
reach the stage of pottery at all, from the reeds or 
other vegetable substances of which they make their 
first baskets. He even believes that in the earliest 
art rectilinear ornament may be regarded as an advance 
on curvilinear. 1 In that case curves may have tempor- 
arily disappeared from the iEgean scheme of decoration 
for the very reason that its people had lost sight of 
organic nature, and had their attention concentrated on 
conquering the inorganic world with their metal tools. 

This theory, too, accounts for the strange pottery marks 
at Tordos in Transylvania. Such marks, as we have 
seen, 2 were the common property of the Mediterranean 
race. It is difficult to see how Dr. Schmidt accounts 
for their presence on his theory. He cannot maintain 
that Egypt and Libya obtained their mass of signs from 
an original centre of diffusion in mid-Europe. I have 
not noticed any allusion to these Tordos marks in Dr. 
Schmidt's later writings, although it was he who pub- 
lished them in 1903/ before he crystallised his theory. 

Whether or no, then, Indo-Europeans entered the 
iEgean world early in Minoan history, they were not the 
men who created the mid-European culture. They were 
rather the men who destroyed it. 4 That they did not 
come to Crete early enough to vitally affect Minoan 
civilisation has already been shown. How early they 
came to the Troad or the mainland of Greece is another 
matter, on which opinions will differ, according to the 
weight attached to the various points discussed in the 
last chapter. 

1 Op. cit. pp. 12, note 1, and 125. 2 Pp. 148-9. 

3 Z. f. Ethnol. 1903, pp. 457-8. 
* Hoernes, op. cit. pp. 124-6. 



DORPFELD AND THE ACH^EANS 197 

Dr. Dorpfeld believes * that they came early, and 
that we can think of the inhabitants of the mainland 
during the whole Minoan period as of a Northern 
' Achaean " stock, with a native geometric style of art. 
This art he thinks survived uninfluenced in certain 
places, such as Olympia, but in others was modified by 
the intrusive oriental art of Crete. Tiryns and Mycenae 
were the centre of an Achaean people who had assimilated 
this oriental Cretan culture. The Pelasgians of Attica 
were not, as we have been accustomed to think, its 
original inhabitants, but an invading population, pre- 
sumably from the East and akin to the "Carian Cretans." 3 
We have, in fact, the old theory that " Mycenaean ' 
civilisation was foreign, and imposed from without, 
cropping up under a new form ; the only difference is 
that Crete has gone over to the foreign side. 

There is no need to follow Dr. Dorpfeld in his further 
theory that Crete itself was finally invaded and conquered 
by the Cretanised Achaeans. 3 In view of Dr. Mackenzie's 
article 4 this part of Dr. Dorpfeld's theory will doubtless 
be modified. Its total recantation would not affect the 
theory as a whole. 

The difficulties, however, that are essentially involved 
in it are serious. It is difficult not to admit, with the 
anthropologists, that, racially, the Mgean as a whole, 
mainland as well as islands, originally belonged, and 
to a large extent still belongs, to the dark Mediterranean 
race. Valuable as have been the contributions in lan- 
guage, and perhaps in character, of the various intrusive 
elements, the fact remains that they are intrusive, and 
have never succeeded in changing the old type. The 
similarity of pre-Hellenic place names in the islands 
and on both sides of the iEgean confirms the evidence 
of racial type. If we once admit that it is improbable 

1 Ath. Mitt. xxxi. 1906, pp. 205-18. 

2 Ibid. p. 218. 3 Ibid, xxx. IQ05, pp. 291-2, 
4 See pp. 78-81. 



198 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

that Minoan Crete was Indo-European, the termination 
in -nth, which occurs there as much as on the mainland, 1 
can scarcely be Indo-European either. Nor could we 
account for the survival into Classical times, not in 
Crete alone, but all over the Greek world, of the essentials 
of Minoan religion, 2 with its kinship to the pre-Indo- 
European cult of Asia Minor, had it been an alien in- 
fluence imposed from Crete. The Renascence of art 
in Attica and in the Greek colonies on the Asia Minor 
coast would also be difficult to explain. On the rival 
hypothesis, 3 those sections of the old Mediterranean race 
that were least modified by the first tide of Northern 
invasion found shelter over-seas, among a kindred race, 
before the pressure of later and fiercer inroads, or were 
isolated in an uninviting rocky corner of the mainland. 
This is a luminous and convincing explanation. On 
Dr. Dorpfeld's theory we should have to imagine 
that there was a continuous Minoan population all along 
the Asiatic coast, 4 to which the Renascence was really 
due, although in Greece itself there was no Minoan 

1 See above, p. 154. This conclusion, it will be noticed, is 
reached on historical and archaeological grounds. On the lin- 
guistic evidence alone there is much to be said for the other 
view. Professor Conway, for instance, suggests to me an at- 
tractive derivation of K6piv0os from Keipa>, to cut (cp. Koppos) 
which is ideal for the Isthmus. K6pw0os, a barley-cake, would thus 
be a " slice " or " bit." This would fit in with the fact that Corinth 
was insignificant in Minoan times. See Hall, O.C.G. 288-9. 

2 Pp. 115, 138. Farnell lays too much stress on eccentricity of 
tribal migration as an origin of similarity of cult ; e.g. his Ionians 
in S. Laconia (C.G.S. iv. 42-4). 

3 E.g. D. G. Hogarth, A. A. pp. 244-5. 

4 Though much of the population of Asia Minor may have 
been akin to the Minoans, neither tradition nor yet excavation, 
so far as at present carried out, suggests that any settlements on 
the coast rose to importance till Late Minoan III. The remains 
of this period at Miletus (Dawkins in Y.W.C.S. 1907, p. 7) are best 
accounted for by migration from Crete and other places under 
pressure from the north. See above, p. 143. 



TROY AND THE NORTH 199 

blood at all except in Attica. The only other explana- 
tion * is, that the Achaeans had got an alien culture 
so deep into the blood, that it survived sub-conscious 
through the Dark Ages of the Dorian conquest, and 
came to the surface again centuries later. Later analogies 
are against such an hypothesis. It was not in Romanised 
Gaul or Spain that the Renascence of the Middle Ages 
came, but in Italy, the home of the race. Blood is 
thicker than education. 

Even for Attica Dr. Dorpfeld only saves the situation 
by supposing that its artistic impulse was due to a foreign 
population, which is at least in complete contradiction 
to the whole trend of Athenian tradition. 2 

The discrepancies between the civilisation of the main- 
land and that of Crete, so far as they exist, can be better 
accounted for by the view already hinted at, 3 that the 
same ^Egean civilisation that reached its maturity in 
Crete had its growth arrested and modified on the 
mainland by contact with the North. How early this 
took place we do not know. The Central Hearth in the 
Second City of Troy is the earliest phenomenon for which 
Northern influence can be claimed. It is not improbable, 
as has been already suggested, 4 that its presence was 
determined by the climatic conditions of Greece and 
Troy themselves. Even if this be not so, it need not 
be dated earlier than the end of Middle Minoan I. An 
examination of the latest accounts of the stratification 
of Troy leaves it doubtful whether the third period 
of the second city, to which this hearth belongs, is nearer 
in date to the first section of the second city than it is 
to the fifth city. The first city is clearly an organic 
unity, and so is the sixth, but the three periods of the 
continuously inhabited second city may cover a much 
longer span than the third, fourth, and fifth cities, for 

1 This is the one that Dorpfeld himself seems to prefer. See 
Ath. Mitt. xxx. 1905, p. 293. 

2 Jidt. i. 56-8 ; Thuc. i. 2, 3 Pp. 178-83. * P. 181. 



200 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

all the depth of deposit that catastrophes have interposed 
between them. Dr. Schmidt, while he is able to deal 
with the pottery of the first and the sixth as separate 
wholes, has to class that of the intervening four cities 
together. 1 He distinguishes indeed, within this aggregate, 
three periods of development, but he seems disinclined 
definitely to associate them with the strata of particular 
" cities." From first to last Troy was an out-of-the-way 
corner of iEgean civilisation, and was never in close touch 
with Crete, its centre point. Even in the sixth city 
there are no swords, 2 and no frescoes on the walls. 3 The 
fact, then, that the pottery of earlier " cities " is primitive 
does not necessarily prove an early date. Dr. Schmidt's 
own arguments as to the Treasure of Priam, which is 
placed by him and his colleagues in the same stratum as 
the Central Hearth, lead, as we have seen, 4 to the same 
conclusion. In point of fact, he only thinks it necessary 
to allow 300 to 400 years between this Jewellery and 
that of the Shaft Graves of Mycenae. 8 As this is an a 
priori estimate of time necessary for development, and 
not merely a section of a general scheme of chronology, 
it is fair to bring it into relation to the Minoan system. 
When Dr. Schmidt made it, he was himself unconsciously 
placing the Central Hearth of Troy well within the Middle 
Minoan periods. 6 If Dr. Dorpfeld were content to accept 
such a view 7 and bring his Achseans into the Greek 

1 In Dorpfeld's T.I. i. pp. 252-83. 

2 A. Gotze in ibid. p. 325 seq. 

3 Dorpfeld in Introduction to Tsountas-Manatt, M.A . p. xxxi. 

4 Above, p. 194. For the Treasure, see 5. 5. figs. 34-59, pp. 57-66. 
6 Z. f.Ethnol. 1904, p. 613. Cp. Hall's late dating O.C.G. pp. 16-7. 

6 Even if the interval between M.M. I. and L.M. III. is con- 
siderably less than is suggested in Chapter V. 

7 It is not to be expected that he will. Although in T.I. i. p. 31 
he places Troy II. 3 not long before 2000 B.C., his late date for the 
sack of Knossos (see above, Chapter VI.) makes it useless to quote 
such a date against him. Neither he nor Schmidt mean in fact 
any such comparatively late influence as is here suggested. 



MYCENAE AND THE NORTH 201 

mainland when Minoan civilisation was already far on in 
its development all over the ^Egean world, there would 
be nothing to object to in his theory. Aryanised iEgeans 
are quite another thing from Carianised Achaeans. 

Aryan influence, whenever it came, permeated the 
^Egean gradually. The fact that the Bronze Culture of 
Volo is lower from the artistic point of view than that 
of its Neolithic Settlement, may point to an early in- 
trusion into Thessaly. 1 The invaders may have reached 
Troy, too, before they reached the Argolid. Although the 
Central Hearth of the second city need not date from the 
beginning of the Bronze Age, it is probably earlier than 
the Palaces of Tiryns and Mycenae in their present form. 2 
By the beginning of Late Minoan I., however, the Central 
Hearth, whatever its significance, was certainly naturalised 
at Mycenae. The scanty remains, too, of the Minoan Script 
may, as we have seen, 3 imply that the language of the 
Argolid was by that time no longer the same as that of 
Crete. On the other hand, we must remember 4 the 
particular way in which the leaf-shaped sword appears on 
the slabs above the Shaft Graves. The pure Northerner 
was in Late Minoan I. and II. still felt to be a foreigner 
in the mainland kingdoms of the old race. 

It is possible, then, and perhaps not improbable, 
that there was a blend of old and new in the great days 
of Mycenae. Does the legend of the Phrygian Pelops 
gaining the throne of Mycenae point to some stage in 
the process ? Or, like the building of the Cyclopean 
walls by men from Lycia, is it only a memory of the 
connection that existed, throughout the Minoan periods, 
between the JEgean and the Asia Minor coast ? That 

1 Tsountas in C.R.A.C. p. 207. 

2 We know little about the early days of Mycemu and Tiryns. 
In Aih. Mitt. xxx. 1905, p. 151 seq. there is an account of some 
recent excavations which seem to show an earlier Palace at 
Tiryns with a similar ground plan. 

3 Pp. 149-5°- 4 P- ^3. 



202 NEOLITHIC POTTERY OF SOUTH RUSSIA 

Northerners had come far south by the end of the Fifteenth 
Century is a possible inference from the mention of 
Danaans on the coast of Canaan in the Tell-el-Amarna 
letters. 1 Is this an echo of the almost contemporary 
racial movements that are illustrated by the Sack of 
Knossos, or does a settlement so far south point to 
something earlier ? Or are the Danaans not Northerners 
at all, but, like the Thuirsha, men of the old race, 
seeking new homes ? Besides the Danaans the letters 
tell us of Lukki, or Lycians. 2 If we could accept the 
suggestion that the name Lycian is Greek, 3 we might 
take this as proving that Greeks were in the Eastern 
Mediterranean by at least the beginning of Late Mi- 
noan III. Their presence there at such a date is on 
general grounds not improbable, but there is danger 
in speculating as to a still earlier settlement upon the 
basis of a doubtful derivation. 4 

We have made but little advance upon the conclusions 
arrived at in Chapter IX. The shifting of the centre of 
gravity of the JEgean world at the end of Late Minoan II. 
remains the first fact in its political history, the first 
reliable indication of racial change. Behind this we 
can only balance probabilities and open up lines of 
inquiry. 

1 Danuna, clearly the Danauna or Danaau of 200 years later. 
See above, pp. 123-4, and Hall, B.S.A. viii. pp. 176-9, 182-4. 
Cp. Petrie, Hist. ii. pp. 264-319 with ibid. iii. pp. 150-1. 

2 Hall, op. cit. ; Petrie, Hist. ii. p. 278. 

3 From Apollo Aviceios. So Kretschmer, E.G.S. pp. 370-1. 
Farnell (C.G.S. iv. 1907, pp. 118-23) elaborates it. He has 
apparently missed the Tell-el-Amarna reference. 

4 We can scarcely dissociate Lycia from Lycaonia (Fick, V.O. 
p. 2). In any case the derivation proves nothing {pace Farnell, 
p. 123) as to Greek elements in Crete. Neither the word Lycian 
nor the worship of Apollo Avkcios are connected with it. The 
very tradition that takes the Cretan Sarpedon to Lycia (Hdt. i. 
173 ; see above, p. 143) adds that the name was not introduced 
by him, but later, from the mainland, 



CHAPTER XII 

CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

It has doubtless already been noticed that the various 
tribal names that generally loom so large in these dis- 
cussions have been practically not mentioned at all in 
the present book. It is not an accident. It is no dis- 
paragement of the interesting work done by scholars 
who specialise on " Pelasgians " and " Achaeans " to 
maintain that what we need at the present moment is 
to clear the air of them. There is a danger that facts 
are being obscured by names. 1 

Professor Ridgeway 8 has done a service in emphasising 
the fact that the Greeks, as we know them, came of a 
mixed race, and that the word Pelasgian, which they 
themselves used of one of the early elements in its 
composition, must be connected with at least some 
phase of " Mycenaean " civilisation. When, however, he 
equates Pelasgian with that civilisation as a whole, he 
is going beyond the evidence ; 8 and scholars who follow 
him must be puzzled by Dr. Mackenzie's application of 
the word to the mainland type of Mycenaean civilisation 
that invaded Crete at the end of Late Minoan II., 4 or 
Dr. Dorpfeld's application of it to the Carian Cretans who 
invaded Attica. 8 Achaean, too, is a catch-word whose use 

1 J. L. Myres makes the same point in Y.W.C.S. 1907, p. 18. 

2 E.A.G. i. passim. 

3 This view, maintained by H. R. Hall in O.C.G. 1901, pp. 79- 
86, still holds good. 

4 B.S.A. xi. p. 222. This is also practically the view of 
P. Kropp, M.M.K. 1905, pp. 36-9. 

5 Ath. Mitt. xxxi. 1906, p. 218. 

«°3 



204 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

does not bring with it identity of view. For Dr. Dorpfeld, 
it means the original Indo-European inhabitants of the 
mainland 1 who invaded Crete when Dr. Mackenzie 
thinks the Pelasgians did. For Dr. Mackenzie they are 
the first wave of the true Greeks, 2 for Professor Ridgeway 
a Celtic tribe that introduced labialism, iron, and crema- 
tion among the Greek-speaking Pelasgians. 

The time is not yet ripe to equate with the different 
stages of early ^Egean civilisation the various tribal 
names that are preserved to us in Classical Greek tradi- 
tion. There is doubtless a kernel of historical truth in 
most of the old Greek legends, but their very complexity 
prevents us from resting content with any such simple 
theory as that which gives us Pelasgian plus Achaean 
plus Dorian as an adequate account of the race history 
of the iEgean. If we insist on identifying Pelasgians 
and Achaeans, we must not ignore Leleges and Minyans, 3 
nor yet the Teucrians and the Danaans, whom we find 
on Egyptian monuments of the XlXth Dynasty, 4 as 
well as in the Homeric poems. The Thuirsha, too, who 
trouble Egypt along with the Akaiuasha or Achaeans, 
are an unknown quantity, whose name, as we have 
seen, 5 cannot be lightly dissociated from the Tursenoi 
or Tyrrhenians, whom Greek tradition connects with 
Lemnos. 

If we turn again to the genealogies of individual Greek 
families, we shall find the same complexity. Minos is, 
after all, as much Dorian 6 as he is Phoenician, and as 
much Phoenician as he is Pelasgian ; Danaus and the 
Perseids are only Pelasgian in the same sense that yEgyp- 

1 Ath. Mitt. xxxi. pp. 205-18. 8 B.S.A. xi. p. 222. 

3 Fick, V.O. pp. 107-18, and Farnell, C.G.S. iv. 23-46, deal 
with them, but rashly. Hall, O.G.G. pp. 99, 100, is more cautious. 

4 See pp. 123-4, 160, 202. s Pp. 123-6. 

6 On this difficult aspect of the Minos tradition, see J.H.S. 
xiv. pp. 356-8. Whether Mr. Evans would still maintain the 
views there expressed is open to question. 



DORIANS AND ACH^ANS 205 

tus is ; Agamemnon and the Pelopidae are not Achaean 
at all. 

One of the most fruitful fields of inquiry that has been 
undertaken on these fields within the last few years is 
Dr. Richard Meister's investigation into the Dorian 
inscriptions. 1 He takes as a test of true Doric certain 
characteristics that are common to the inscriptions of 
Sparta and the caricature of the Spartan dialect that is 
contained in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes. By this 
method he finds that, outside of Sparta, it only existed 
at Argos, Mycenae, and Knossos and Gortyna in Central 
Crete. In Laconia, in all the Argolid except these parti- 
cular cities, and in the east and west of Crete, these " true 
Doric " characteristics are not found, and the inscriptions 
diverge less markedly from those of other Greek dialects. 
It was only in certain centres, Dr. Meister concludes, 
that the Dorians were strong enough to impose their 
dialect without modification upon the races they had 
conquered. Elsewhere we have the old Achaean tongue, 
with only a veneer of Dorism. What that veneer pre- 
cisely consists in, and what is the character of the dialect 
that underlies it, is another matter, and Dr. Meister has 
not as yet dealt with it. He has already opened up 
what promises to be an important field of research. 
Will it some day give us the data for determining the 
character of the Greek dialects in the period or periods 
when the Homeric poems were composed ? ■ 

1 S.G.W. xxiv.pt. 3, 1904. His five '* shibboleths," as he calls 
them (p. 97), are (a) h for o- between vowels, e.g. fiS>ha for fiovaa ; 
(b) a for 6, e.g. dveoijKe for dvedrjKc ; (c) Sfi or h for $•, e.g. A«'? for Zcvs ; 
(d) for F before vowels, e.g. (BoiKeras for (F)oiKerrjs; (e) 1 for e 
before a or o preceded by an original <r or j, e.g. Qios or (see b) o-i6s 
for Qeos (originally Gffo-op). For Laconia (pp. 8-51) the evidence 
is convincing on all five points, but it should be noticed that 
for Argos and Mycenae (pp. 51-61) there is no evidence for (b) 
and (c), while in Central Crete (pp. 61-95) (a) does not occur. 

2 In the forthcoming second volume of his F..A.G. Ridgeway 
will develop the view that the Dorians were an Illyrian people, 



206 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

With the Homeric Problem the present work does not 
propose to deal, save in so far as direct light has been 
thrown on it by the Cretan discoveries. It is unnecessary, 
for instance, to go into the question of the Homeric 
House. 1 The only conclusion we can draw from the 
Cretan remains is that several types of house existed 
in the Eastern Mediterranean side by side. We may 
not even yet have discovered that which approximates 
most closely to the Homeric House. It has certainly 
no special connection with what we have found in 
Crete. 

The most important contribution that Crete has made 
to the Homeric Problem is that it has emphasised for 
us the greatness of the art whose memories are preserved 
in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Palace of Alkinoos, 
the Shield of Achilles, were no mere imaginings of the 
Early Iron Age, its — 

Masts of the beaten gold 
And sails of taffetie. 2 

We need not of course assume that the picture of life 
preserved to us in the Homeric description was ever 
worked by a Cretan artist on an actual shield. 3 That 
weapons of war were not grudged splendid decorative 
designs is shown by the dagger-blades at Mycenae, 4 and 
the Lion and Goat on the gold-plated sword from the 
Chieftain's grave at Zafer Papoura. 5 It is probable, 

if we may judge from a short account of a recent lecture (Camb. 
Rev. March 14, 1907). It will be interesting to see how this will 
be related to Conway's view that the Eteo-Cretans were akin to 
the Illyrians. 

1 For the literature see J. L. Myres, J.H.S. xx. pp. 128-50 ; 
E. Gardner, ibid. xxi. pp. 293-305 ; G. Dickins, ibid, xxiii. 325-34 ; 
Noack, H.P. 1903, pp. 39-73 ; A. Lang, H.A. 1906, pp. 209-28. 

2 Ap. Lang, H.A. p. 193. 

3 See my Review of Lang H.A. in C.R. xxi. 1907, p. 22, and 
his reply in ibid. pp. 50-1. 

* See p. 136. e See p. 88. 



THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES 207 

however, that in the great Minoan periods metal was not 
largely used for shields. How early they were strength- 
ened with bronze plates we do not know ; but it is possible 
that even before that time the description was taken 
over from another object, or another material. The 
" five folds " of Achilles's shield * show that the first poet 
did not conceive it as altogether of metal. The still 
later stage when the shield was all of metal 8 and the 
greaves of tin 3 need not here detain us. In the Porcelain 
Plaques that decorated a chest of cypress wood 4 we 
have at least got just such a picture of life as is given us 
in the eighteenth Iliad. We may take it that, whether 
or no such an elaborate scene was ever worked out on 
metal, or on a weapon of war, the original poet is proved 
to have been inspired by an actual work of art. The 
Palaces of Knossos and Phaestos, with their splendid 
art and their triumphs of mechanical science, are in a 
similar way the direct prototype of the Palace and the 
Gardens of Alkinoos, 5 and the golden automata of the 
smithy of Hephaestus. 6 

We need not discuss the interesting suggestions of 

1 //. xviii. 481. See, too, above, p. 38. 

2 In ibid. 468-80, it is clear that the making of the shield is 
regarded as entirely metal working. 481 is a survival, not under- 
stood. 

3 Ibid. 613. There were cuirasses of some sort in Minoan 
times, as they appear on the Clay Tablets. See Evans, Cor. Num. 
1906, p. 357. They are not, however, represented on Minoan art 
as worn by warriors. For ritual " copes " of stiff texture, which 
some archaeologists consider cuirasses, see p. 37. In Cyprus, 
however, the cuirass and also the round shield appear in art 
which is not later than the beginning of Late Minoan III. Evans 
{J.A.I. 1900, p. 213, and fig. 5, p. 209) considers that they came 
into the TEgean from the south-east. 

4 See p. 20. 

5 Od. vii. 83-132. General phrases of a similar type are used 
of the Palace of Menelaos at Sparta in iv. 42-8, but there is no 
detail. 

6 //. xviii. 410-21. 



208 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

Dr. Drerup ! that the origin of the Odyssey is to be 
sought for in Crete ; but it can be at once granted that 
attention has been unduly concentrated on Ithaca, 
Leukas, and Corcyra, while the numerous references in the 
Odyssey to the topography of Crete 2 have been neglected. 
We must not press too hard the alleged Southern char- 
acter of the flora of the poem — its laurel, cypress, palm, 
and lotus, and the cultivation of the fig and olive. 8 
The Phaeacians, however, themselves, mariners, artists, 
feasters, dancers, are surely the Minoans of Crete. 4 In 
one passage in the Seventh Book," as Dr. Drerup suggests, 6 
the secret is out. Alkinoos is telling Odysseus that the 
Phseacians will take him home, even if it be farther than 
Euboea, the farthest place in the world, where they once 
took Rhadamanthus. It is a bad comparison if the 
point of view, as is ordinarily held, is that of Corcyra, a 
good one if it is that of Crete. And was not Rhada- 

1 Homer, 1903, pp. 130-5. Fick. V.O. p. 7, makes a similar 
suggestion for his " Tisis," or second part of the Odyssey, but 
the seventh-century date to which he still assigns it makes his 
views irrelevant to the present argument. 

2 iii. 291-300, xix. 172-9, 188-9, 200 » 33%- 

3 ix. 183, iii. 64, vi. 163, ix. 93, vii. 116, xxiv. 246. 

4 vi. 266, 270, vii. 34, 86-102, viii. 247-50, 370-80 ; cp. 
xiv. 224, for Cretan love of the sea. It may be noticed in passing 
that viii. 246, which denies the Phaeacians boxing, is on this 
theory an unfortunate line in view of pp. 34-5. 

5 321-4. 

6 Op. cit. pp. 135, 145 ; I had myself independently drawn the 
same inference from this passage, but Drerup anticipated me. I 
may add that this very passage, with its miraculous journey 
to Ithaca and back in a single day, might, when misunderstood, 
have done something to create the belief in classical Corcyra 
that it was Phaeacia (Thuc. i. 26, iii. 70). There may, too, have 
been genuine Minoan traditions in the island to help this out. 
As we have seen (p. 13), there was a Minoa there. Is Od. vi. 
4-8, with its original home of the Phaeacians " in Hypereia, near 
the Cyclopes," a dim memory of the links that connected Crete 
and Sicily ? See pp. 12-3, 42, 115. 



CRETE AND PH^EACIA 209 

man thus Minos' s own twin brother ? What was he 
doing in Corcyra ? 

Such descriptions as the Palace of Alkinoos and the 
Shield of Achilles take us back, behind even the earliest 
phases of transition, to Late Minoan I. and II. Whether 
or no their glories were put into verse by the Minoans 
themselves we cannot tell. We may be sure at least 
that the first Greek poems they inspired were sung by 
men who had heard of them as living realities, even if 
they had not themselves seen them ; men who had 
walked the palaces perhaps, if not as their masters, at 
least as mercenaries or freebooters. 

These memories of Late Minoan I. and II. do not form 
a considerable part of the Homeric poems. Their 
story, as a whole, and the main texture of the civilisation 
that it presupposes, refer to Late Minoan III. The 
singers of the first Greek ballads upon which the Iliad 
and the Odyssey are based, present to us the sea 
power of Agamemnon as existing in this transitional 
period, at the close of the Bronze Age. Whether or no 
they were themselves of the same race or language 
as the men whose deeds they were singing we have 
no evidence. 

Late Minoan III. is a long period, and marks the 
successive stages of a gradually decaying culture. In its 
later phases, as we have already seen, 1 the Bronze Age 
shades off into the Iron, and the tombs of Eastern Crete 
show us strange in-and-out combinations characteristic 
of the transition. The inference we draw from these 
combinations, as well as from the cremation graves of 
Salamis, 2 will probably largely depend on our general theory 
as to the origin and composition of the Homeric poems. 
Those who, like Professor Ridge way, 3 Mr. Andrew Lang, 4 

1 See pp. 100-2. 

2 Tsountas-Manatt, M.A. p. 388 ; Poulsen, Dip. 1905, p. 2 ; 
Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. p. 32. 

3 E.A.G. i. pp. 631-6. « H.A. 1906. 

14 



210 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

or Mr. T. W. Allen, 1 believe that the poems are the 
work of a single poet creating them once for all at a given 
moment of culture, will probably claim them in their 
support. It may be granted that they make it conceivable 
that a given poet living at the close of the Bronze Age 
may have had the exact archaeological equations that 
are demanded by the Homeric ''moment of culture" 
presented to him as the sum total of his individual 
experience. 

Support may further be drawn by those who believe 
in the unity of the poems from the interesting views 
on cremation lately put forward by Dr. Dorpfeld. 2 He 
sees that the view that the Achseans invariably burned 
their dead, although it is the obvious deduction from 
the Homeric poems, raises serious difficulties. It not 
only distinguishes them more sharply than we should 
expect from the earlier inhabitants of the iEgean, who, 
whether in Crete or Mycenae or elsewhere, seem to have 
always buried their dead, but it seems to conflict with 
the evidence of Classical Greece. In a necropolis at Samos, 
for instance, belonging to the sixth century B.C., 159 
burial graves have been discovered, and only two in 
which the bodies were cremated. 3 In Sicily, too, at 
Syracuse and Megara Hyblaea, the figures are 686 to 
119. 4 Dr. Dorpfeld' s suggestion is that from first to 
last the practice was really the same, and that the 
supposed change is only one of degree, due to the 
peculiar conditions of distant wars. The dead, he 
thinks, were always buried, in Minoan, Homeric, and 
Classical times, but for hygienic reasons their bodies 
were either embalmed or " scorched " 6 before burial. 

1 C.R. xix. 359, xx. pp. 267-71, xxi. pp. 16-9. 

2 M.N. pp. 95 seq. See also a summary in C.R.A.C. pp. 

161-5. 

3 Poulsen, Dip. 1905, p. 4. 4 Ibid. 

5 The embalming would only be for the rich. So Helbig ap. 
Frazer, Pausanias, hi. pp. 106-7. Dorpfeld translates by "dorren" 



CREMATION 211 

The scorching might, in some cases, go as far as complete 
burning, 1 but this would seldom be the case unless a 
man died abroad, and wished to be buried at home. 
Even then the important thing was the collecting of the 
bones after burning, and the burying of them at home, 
as is shown by Homer's account of the funeral rites of 
Patroklos. 2 

There is no doubt that this theory accounts in an 
ingenious and attractive way for a situation that is 
admittedly difficult. The objection is that at present 
there is practically no direct evidence to support it. If 
it is true, there ought to be traces of " scorching " in 
every burial interment of Minoan and Classical times. 
Yet in many hundreds of such graves that have been 
opened, there is nothing of the kind. Some traces of 
partial burning noticed by Dr. Orsi and Professor von 
Stern, 8 and some charred fragments found in tombs at 
Mycenae, do not carry us far. The latter are partly due 
to sacrifices, 4 partly to charcoal brought in to comfort 
and warm the dead. Clay chafing-pans filled with charcoal 
are actually found in several of the Zafer Papoura graves. 
In one of them, and also in the Royal Tomb at Isopata, 

(dry or scorch) the rapxveiv of //. vii. 85. In Hdt. ix. 120, the 
hero Protesilaos is a raptor, a cured or dried object, like a salt 
fish. 

1 For this Dorpfeld thinks the specific word would not be kclUiv 
but KaraKaieiv. Thus he explains Phcsdo, 115E, 1) Kai6p,€vov, fj Karopvr- 
TOjjLevov, not as two alternatives (= aut . . . aut . . . ) but as two 
stages in one process (== sive . . . sive), Socrates did not wish 
Crito to see his body either in the preliminary stage of being 
scorched or in the concluding stage of being buried. The cpoara 81) 
nays fie BdnTrj of the immediately preceding 115C is against the 
ingenious hypothesis. Socrates has without doubt got into his 
head at the moment alternative methods of burial. 

2 //. xxiii. 239-40, 251-4. 

3 Quoted by Dorpfeld, op. cit. It should be noticed, however, 
that Von Stern does not himself agree with Dorpfeld's theory. See 
P.K.S.JR. 1905, p. 71, note. 

4 S.S. p. 158 ; Frazer, Pausanias, iii. p. 107. 



212 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

the charcoal is in a plaster tripod that forms a regular 
portable hearth. 1 We must leave to the chemists the 
verification of Dr. Dorpfeld's further suggestion that it 
is his scorching that accounts for the " sitting-up " or 
" hunched-up " posture of the skeletons in many iEgean 
and Central European graves. 2 

If Dr. Dorpfeld's theory is correct, we have to suppose 
that the idea of such a thing has been so remote from 
the consciousness of most archaeologists that they have 
failed to notice its existence. In these days of scientific 
method and careful observation this is an improbable 
hypothesis. 8 The old theory still holds the field in 
spite of the in-and-out corkscrew development that it 
presupposes. That the Northern custom bulked more 
largely in the Mgeaxi in the first days of conquest than 
in the Classical period, when the old blood had had 
time to reassert itself, is after all only natural. It is 
possible, too, that in the days of migration and distant 
forays the convenience of cremation would spread it 
among people for whom it was not a racial tradition. 
We can accept this part of Dr. Dorpfeld's theory 4 without 
the rest. It has already been noticed 5 that in the Tomb 
at Muliana we may have an actual case of cremation 
succeeding burial in the same race, and possibly in the 
same family. It has been suggested, indeed, that race 
has little to do with the matter. Dr. Poulsen believes 6 
that the practice of cremation can start among any early 
people as a happy thought. When the flesh goes, the 

1 P.T. pp. 28, 36, 51, 85, 87, 143, and Plate LXXXIX. and 
fig. 46, p. 49. 

2 What the Germans call " Hockergraber." 

3 See Evans's remarks in C.R.A.C. p. 166. So Halbherr, 
writing I imagine with Dorpfeld's theory in view, says that in 
the Hagia Triada Tholos there are no traces of " even partial 
cremation " (M.I.L. vol. xxi. 5, 1905, p. 252). 

4 Which indeed is not new. See e.g. G. G. A. Murray, A.G.L. 
1897, p. 31. 6 Above, pp. 101-2. 

6 Dip. 1905, pp. 5-9, etc. 



CREMATION 213 

ghost of one's unpleasant ancestor goes with it. So Mr. 
Evans 1 gives instances of such belief in vampires tem- 
porarily spreading cremation in mediaeval and modern 
times. These arguments, however, cannot be pressed 
too hard. Neither vampirism nor migration can be 
considered as more than a secondary cause of the spread of 
cremation in the ^Egean. The Homeric practice is too 
uniform, and it can scarcely be chance that the change 
is in fact coincident with the intrusion of a new race from 
a quarter where cremation was common. 2 

Cremation then must still be equated by the partisans 
of Unity with the given " moment of culture." How far 
such a view is probable on general grounds we cannot 
here discuss. It must be pointed out, however, that the 
evidence of the East Cretan tombs, so far as it goes, does 
not in fact point in this direction. There are no exact 
equations, but rather in-and-out combinations of the 
most diverse sorts. What they really suggest is that 
the overlapping here and there, in actual fact, of the old 
stages of culture with the new, prevented the younger 
generation of poets from seeing any difficulty in the 
epithets and descriptions that they inherited from their 
predecessors. East Crete may be an excellent argument 
against any mechanical theory of stratification, that 
rejects as spurious all that does not tally with the bloom 
of Mycenae, or against late dating that assigns a consider- 
able portion of the poem to days when even decadent 
Mycenae was a thing of the past. They have no sting 
for those of us who believe that all but the fringe 
of the story of our poems was expressed in Greek hexa- 
meters before the end of the transitional Early Iron Age, 
and yet think several great poets more probable than 
one great poet, 3 and evolution more probable than creation 

1 C.R.A.C. p. 166. 

2 See Ridgeway's valuable chapter in E.A.G. i. pp. 481-551. 

3 Mr. Lang (H.A . and C.R. xxi. p. 5 1 ) thinks it an argument 
in favour of Unity that the poets, except Coleridge, are on his 



214 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

by a single act. Such a position may be illustrated, 
though of course it cannot be proved, by two examples. 1 
The first is suggested by the East Cretan tombs. There 
clearly was a period of transition when bronze and iron 
weapons were both in use in the same locality. Are 
the descriptions in the Homeric poems of swords and 
spears satisfactorily accounted for on the theory that 
they were originally written at this given moment of 
culture ? The character of our answer can be antici- 
pated when it is realised that of the three chief living 
defenders of the unity of the poems, two believe that 
the Homeric swords and spears were all of bronze, 2 and 
the other that they were all of iron. 8 The fact is that 
on the unity theory either of these views is possible ; the 

side, and that they carry weight "in a matter of their own 
business." That the poetic temperament makes an unsound 
judge of such matter is shown by some delightfully naif remarks 
made by Sir Alfred Austin, the present Poet Laureate, on the 
relation of Shakespeare to his sources (Times, September, 23, 1904, 
quoted by R. H. Carr, Plutarch's Lives of Coriolanus, etc. : Clar. 
Press. 1906, Introd. p. xviii). In ignorance as to the undoubted 
facts as to the way Shakespeare used North's translation of Plutarch 
for his Roman plays (see my remarks C.R. xxi. p. 22), Sir 
Alfred writes : " Though Shakespeare may have taken his plots 
and the names of his personages from wherever he happened 
to find them, he could by no possibility have borrowed prose 
passages from any one, and made poetry of them by turning 
them into verse. Poetry is not made in that fashion. The 
white heat, the fine frenzy of the brain in the moment of such 
composition, precludes so cold a procedure. . . . To suppose that 
the poet deliberately takes his material, his subject-matter, 
from others, and then transforms it into poetry by the aid of 
what Prospero calls his ' so potent art,' is to commit the mis- 
take so often made by critics with an insufficient amount of 
imagination." Comment is needless ! 

1 For a fuller exposition of a similar point of view, see P. Cauer, 
G.H. 1895, an d G. G. A. Murray's brilliant chapter in A.G.L. 
1897, pp. 8-43. See also H. Browne, H.S. 1905 ; and my remarks 
in C.R. xiv. p. 461, xxi. pp. 19-23. 

2 A. Lang, H.A. pp. 176-208 : T. W. Allen, C.R. xxi. p. 19 

3 Ridgeway, E.A.G. i. pp. 294, 303-7. 



IRON AND BRONZE 215 

one view that is impossible is just that which, ex 
hypothesi, ought to be suggested by the East Cretan 
tombs, namely that they were sometimes of the one 
material and sometimes of the other. In the poems they 
are invariably called bronze, except in one single phrase ; 
but the phrase is of so peculiar a character that it vitiates 
any conclusion that can be drawn from the numberless 
examples that can be ranged against it. In two different 
books of the Odyssey, though in reference to the same 
incident, the reason given for putting swords and spears 
out of the way is the proverb that " Iron does of itself 
attract a man." 1 Yet the very weapons that are re- 
ferred to are themselves later on called bronze. 2 That 
iron was already so closely associated with fighting that 
the fact had got crystallised into a proverb is indeed 
staggering for the supporters of unity. There is little 
wonder that Professor Ridgeway is so impressed by 
the fact that he takes it as the one test case, 3 and con- 
cludes that bronze was used in all other cases as a mere 
linguistic survival from an earlier stage. Mr. Lang, 
on the other hand, would like to believe that the phrase 
is a piece of " gag " of much later date than the Odyssey 
in general ; he sees that if it was written by " Homer," 
it once and for all disposes of his theory that swords and 
spears were always, or even usually, of bronze. 4 Neither 
Professor Ridgeway nor Mr. Lang, it may be noticed, 
is able to make the slightest use of the combinations 
suggested by the East Cretan graves. 

1 Od. xvi. 294, xix. 13 : dvros yap icpeXKcrai avdpa ai8i]pos. 

2 Ibid. xxii. 125. 3 E.A.G. i. p. 294. 

4 In C.R. xxi. p. 21, I said that Mr. Lang "takes shelter in 
the ranks of the Athetisers and rejects the two lines ' as a very- 
late addition.' " Mr. Lang (ibid. p. 50) objects to this statement of 
his views, and explains that he did not reject the lines, but only 
said that, if they were genuine, they destroyed his theory. As 
he does not abandon his theory, this seems to me to be the same 
thing ! None the less, if Mr. Lang considers the term " Athetiser " 
to be " opprobrious," I gladly withdraw it ! 



216 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

On the evolution theory, on the other hand, these 
graves are a real help. It is unlikely that weapons 
would be invariably called bronze in a transitional age, 
when iron was becoming common. The use is too uni- 
form for Professor Ridgeway's explanation to hold good. 
His analogy of the use of Chalkeus and Chalkeion for 
blacksmith and smithy in later Greek ■ is not a sound 
one. They are used as fixed names, just as we talk 
of an " ironmonger." We do not, all the same, talk of 
buying " iron " kettles when we mean copper ones ; 
nor would the Greeks have talked of the objects made 
by the Chalkeus as bronze, unless they were so in point 
of fact. An epithet is different from what is practically 
a proper name. The real analogy is the occasional use 
of Chalkos for a sword or spear in later poetry. We 
agree that such a survival is natural ; but if it has no 
basis in actual life, it is bound to be sporadic, and not 
universal. It is impossible to believe that in every 
passage except one a poet would have always talked of 
bronze when in point of fact he meant iron. On the 
other hand, if the word " bronze " was once used in a great 
mass of poetry at a time when it represented the actual 
facts, it was possible for the younger generation of poets 
not only to leave unaltered what they had inherited, 
but to create the new on the model of the old. Until 
the discovery, however, of the East Cretan tombs, there 
was always the difficulty in this view that it seemtd to 
demand, what was out of the question at so early an 
age, 2 something like conscious archaising ; Professor 
Ridgeway's principle of linguistic survival would account 
for much, but it would hardly account for the younger 
poets' almost complete success in running on the old 
lines. If, however, these later poets wrote in days when 
iron weapons had not yet completely supplanted bronze, 
they would see nothing odd in their predecessors' lan- 

1 E.A.G. i. p. 295. 

2 As is well shown by Lang, H.A . passim. 



ARETE AND ALKINOOS 217 

guage ; and they would associate with it, without any- 
feeling of incongruity, the proverb that had already grown 
round the dominant use of their own day. 

Our second example will be linguistic, and not archaeo- 
logical, and our reason for introducing it is that in dealing 
with the Homeric question it is vital that both lines of 
argument should be considered side by side, and allowed 
their cumulative weight. While explaining to Odysseus 
the genealogy of the royal house of Phaeacia, Athene 
states that the king and queen, Alkinoos and Arete, are 
" descended from the same ancestors ; " l they are, in 
fact, uncle and niece. 2 Nausithoos had two sons, Rhexe- 
nor and Alkinoos. Rhexenor died " without leaving a 
male child," 3 and his daughter Arete became the wife 
of her uncle Alkinoos. Such is the meaning of the 
genealogy as it stands, but it is only extracted from it 
at the expense of two flagrant violations of the ordinary 
usages of the Greek language. " Descended from the 
same ancestors " is not the legitimate meaning of the 
Greek words, but " born of the same parents," and 
Rhexenor, on any ordinary principle of interpretation, 
died " without a child," and not " without a male child." 4 
In the version for which these two lines were originally 
written, Arete and Alkinoos were clearly brother and 
sister, and Rhexenor was the brother of both. Expres- 
sions that were really applicable only to a grosser version 
have been taken over into one that is more refined, and 
are strained to bear a new interpretation. It is significant 
that we have a tradition preserved to us in Hesiod, 5 
that the king and queen were, in fact, brother and sister. 

1 Od. vii. 54 • eK Se TOKrjoov t<ov avroav. 

2 Murray, A.G.L. p. 40, says by mistake first cousins. 

3 vii. 64 : top pev aKovpov covra. 

4 aicovpov would naturally be without a Kovpij as well as 
without a Kovpos. 

8 A p. Schol. ad loc. It was probably from the Catalogue of 
Women, the so-called Eoiai (»; olm). 



218 CRETE AND THE HOMERIC POEMS 

What is the attitude to this passage of those who be- 
lieve that in the Iliad and the Odyssey we have the product 
of a single act of creation ? In no single other passage 
in Greek does the common word Tofcevs mean ancestor, 
as opposed and contrasted to parent. That in some 
passages ancestor is synonymous with parent is, of course, 
no argument at all. How do they get over the fact ? 
Are we to imagine the eccentricity of a " moment of 
culture " or an intrusive bit of " gag " ? l 

It is more important to notice the way in which the 
higher criticism deals with the difficulty, so far as it has 
realised it. 2 Kirchhoff 3 retains in their natural sense 
the two lines in which it is said that Arete is born " of 
the same parents " as Alkinoos, but expunges all the rest 
of the passage as a late addition. He is obliged in 
consequence to expunge a later line of the same book * 
where Arete is said to be the daughter of Rhexenor. 
Fick 5 follows Kirchhoff in regard to the first passage, 
but re-writes the later line, so that it reads that Arete 
is " the wife of great-hearted Alkinoos." Van Leeuwen 6 
suggests a more ingenious emendation of the last line, by 
which Rhexenor becomes no longer a man, but an epithet, 
and Arete is " the wife of Alkinoos the breaker of men " ! 
He notices, too, what neither of his predecessors have 
done, that on purely linguistic grounds the one phrase 
which there might be some reason to consider late is 
the use of the pronouns in " the same " or " those very " 
parents. Yet this occurs in the only two lines that 
Kirchhoff and Fick retain as part of the original poem ! 

The real fact is that all this athetising and emendation 

1 See T. W. Allen, C.R. xxi. p. 17. 

2 So far as I am aware, the point about a<ovpos has not been 
noticed. 

3 H.O. pp. 79, 320. i 1. 146. 
s H.O. U.S. pp. 58-9. 

6 H.O.C. pp. 149, 155. } ApfjTr}, aXoxos pr)£f)vopos'A\Kipooio for the 
MSS. 'Apjjrjy, Ovyarep 'Prjgrjvopos duriOeoio. 



EVOLUTION 219 

is unsound. The passage as a whole is bound up in- 
dissolubly in the texture of the poem. None the less 
nothing is more certain than that it represents the 
combination of two competing versions, both written 
in hexameters. Let us remember that it was no partisan 
of unity, but Wolf himself, the first higher critic of Homer 
since the Alexandrians, who said : l " Perhaps it will 
never be possible to show, even with probability, the 
precise points at which new filaments or dependencies 
of the texture begin." The fact that it is impossible 
to decompose is what we should expect ; it does not 
render a whit less probable the theory of evolution. 

1 Prsefatio in 77. 1794, p. xxviii. 



APPENDIX A (to p. 70) 

THE EGYPTIAN YEAR 

The beginning of all the trouble is that the Egyptians 
used a calendar year of only 365 days, and ignored leap 
year. Their New Year's Day, the first day of the month 
Thoth, originally began in the summer. It was the time 
of the greatest event of the year, the inundation of the 
Nile, and was naturally taken as the beginning of all 
things. 

The beginning of the inundation, however, was not 
the only event that marked the New Year. The actual 
day was fixed by the rising of Sothis or Sirius, the bright 
star of the constellation Canis Major, which looms so 
large in all Classical literature. By the " rising " of the 
star was meant, as always in ancient times, not the 
first day of the year on which it was seen at night, but 
the first day on which it was seen emerging on the eastern 
horizon, in the faint light that immediately precedes sun- 
rise. 

Though, however, the first of Thoth fell here originally 
in the year from which the Egyptians began their counting, 
as we count from a.d. or B.C., the Romans from the 
foundation of the city, the Greeks from the first Olympiad, 
it lost a quarter of a day every year owing to its inability 
to " leap," and got this much away from its starting- 
point. In four years it fell a day earlier, in one hundred 
years nearly a month earlier, in the true solar seasonal 
year, and was already far away from the rising of Sirius. 
In 730 years it had retired into midwinter, and was 
completely out of touch with the inundation of the Nile. 



222 APPENDIX A 

In 1460 full solar years — that is, in 1461 of its own 
reckoning — it had gone back a complete cycle, and 
coincided once more with the rising of Sirius. 

The " first of Thoth," then, of any given year tells us 
little by itself. What sort of " first of Thoth " was it ? 
One that fell in our November, or our April ? The only 
hope of identifying it is to find out in what year the 
calendar is supposed to begin, and to calculate from that 
basis. Here fortunately we have information. Cen- 
sorinus, a Latin writer of the third century A.D., among 
the curiosities of the calendar that he dedicated to his 
patron Cerellius on his birthday, 1 gives us the theory of 
the Egyptian year, and bases his calculations on the day 
of the Roman calendar on which the first of Thoth fell 
in the consul-dated year in which he is himself writing. 
By his help we can establish the beginning of the Egyptian 
cycle. To take Meyer's dates, for simplicity, we see that 
by a.d. 140 the Calendar had come round full circle, 
and New Year's Day coincided once more with the 
rising of Sirius. Similar cycles had therefore begun at 
intervals of 1460 years before a.d. 140 — that is, at 1321 
B.C., 2781 B.C., 4241 B.C. Meyer makes the latter date the 
beginning of the Calendar, the first fixed date in history. 
In that year, he calculates, 2 Sirius rose on the 15th of 
June of the true seasonal Gregorian year. Its rising must 
have thus exactly coincided with the traditional beginning 
of the inundation. The Festival of " The Night of the 
Drop," is at the present time observed in Egypt on the 
17 th of June. 3 As will be seen later, the Sot hie year is 
practically equivalent to the Julian year, but longer than 
the Gregorian. In the immediately earlier or later cycles, 
therefore, Sirius rose at the beginning or the end of the 

1 De die natali liber (ed. Cholodniak, 1889), chap. xxi. 6 and 
10, and xviii. 10. 

2 A. P. A. 1904, p. 43. 

3 Budge, The Nile (Cook, 1901), p. 91; Baedeker's Egypt 
(Eng. ed. 1902), p. lxxvii ; Murray's Egypt (1900), p. 39. 



SOTHIC DATES 223 

true seasonal June, and not in the middle of it. At such 
periods, Meyer argues, the idea of fixing the Calendar by 
its rising would never have occurred to people, as it did 
not coincide with the beginning of the inundation. 

So far, so good ; but can we go further ? Granting 
that a document tells us that a certain event happened 
on the first of Thoth of the first year of Senusert III. or 
Amenhotep I., have we any clue to follow ? It is here 
that the very imperfections of the Egyptian calendar 
come unexpectedly to our aid. If we knew that some- 
thing happened on the first of August of the first year of 
Edward I. of England or Philippe III. of France, it would 
not give us much additional information to hear that it was 
a summer day. But in Egypt the first of Thoth can only 
be a summer day on a comparatively small number of 
the 1460 years through which it revolves in its cycle. 
Such double dating by the general season of the year 
has already been used in this connection. There is in 
particular a picturesque document in which Harurre, a 
royal envoy of Xllth Dynasty days, 1 tells us that it 
was in the seventh and ninth months that he went to 
work at the turquoise mines at Sinai, and survived " the 
evil summer season," when " the mountains brand the 
skin." 

Sometimes, however, we can get nearer to the true 
date still. If we are told that Sothis rose on a given 
day of a given month of a given calendar year, we can 
fix the exact point of the Sothic cycle that the calendar 
year has reached. If we heard, for instance, that in a 
given calendar year Sothis rose on the first of Thoth, 
the year meant would be either 1321 or 2781 or one or 

1 Breasted, A.R. vol. i. p. 321, No. 735, says that this is " un- 
questionably Middle Kingdom, and may provisionally be placed 
in the reign of Amenemhat III." Has Petrie, Sinai, p. 170, fresh 
evidence when he assigns it without doubt to that reign, and, 
indeed, treats it as one of the corroborative proofs of the correct- 
ness of the Berlin Sothic arguments ? 



224 APPENDIX A 

other of the original starting-points of the cycle. When 
therefore we read, in the Ebers Papyrus, that Sothis rose 
on the ninth day of Epiphi (the eleventh calendar month) 
in the ninth year of Amenhotep I., we are able to fix 
the date. His ninth year is 1550, and the year of his 
accession to the throne is 1558. 

The value of this particular Sothic date lies in the fact 
that we know enough from other sources about the 
XVIIIth Dynasty to be certain of the cycle in which it is to 
be placed. It cannot be 1460 years before or after 1550. 
So it is with a Canopus Decree of Ptolemy Euergetes, 
that gives a double dating for 238 B.C. While, however, 
these two Sothic datings have proved a harmonising 
rather than a disturbing factor, it is different with the 
Kahun Papyrus of the Xllth Dynasty. 1 If we agree 
to place the date in the cycle that begins in 2781 B.C., 
it means that Senusert III. must have begun to reign in 
1888 B.C. The Xllth Dynasty must in this case have 
begun in 2000, and ended in 1788. If, however, we 
listen to Professor Petrie, we move all these dates back 
precisely 1460 years. 

Such is the theory of the Egyptian year, stated in its 
baldest form, and without qualifications. There is one 
obvious qualification to make to start with. As the 
calendar year took four years to move a day away 
from the Sothic year, we can only fix the dates within 
a margin of four years. Apart from this, there is a 
difficulty in the interpretation of Censorinus. Not only 
is there the possibility, already mentioned, 2 that his 
text is wrong, but that he has himself made a mistake 
as to the exact day on which the Sothic cycle during 
which he wrote, began. It is suggested that it was 
July 19, a.d. 140, not July 20, a.d. 139. 

Whatever view we take on these points, the margin of 
error is still slight. A more serious question is raised by 
the consideration of the latitude at which the rising of 

1 See p. 68. 2 P. 69, n. 1. 



SOTHIC AND JULIAN YEARS 225 

Sothis was in each case observed. Oppolzer * held that 
this was in all cases that of Memphis, and that the priests 
of Memphis had the sole control of the matter. The only 
reason for holding this is the a priori one that anything 
else would have led to confusion. It is possible that it 
was the case, but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact 
that, considering the length of time involved, we are 
straining to the uttermost the a priori argument of 
religious conservatism. We are maintaining that from 
the first Dynasties to the days of the Roman Empire, 
' Greenwich time " was always that of Memphis, and 
never that of Thebes or Alexandria. It must be noticed, 
however, that even if we allow that the latitude in question 
may have varied, the Kahun observation would in any 
case have been taken from that of Memphis, which is 
far nearer to Kahun than either Alexandria or Thebes. 
Censorinus's observation, too — if it was not also taken 
from the latitude of Memphis — must have been taken 
from that of Alexandria, and the difference of the time 
at which Sothis is seen rising in the two latitudes is only 
two minutes. 2 This would not appreciably affect the 
dates arrived at for the Xllth Dynasty. The only 
Sothic dates which would be seriously affected by such an 
argument would be observations that could reasonably 
be connected with the latitude of Thebes, in which Sothis 
rose seven minutes earlier than at Memphis, and nine 
than at Alexandria. 

There is another point in our account that needs 
explaining. It has been assumed that the 365-day 
Egyptian calendar year was shorter than the Sothic 
year by a quarter of a day, and that therefore in four 

1 S.S.A. 1885, p. 19. 

2 Apparent rising of Sothis, 

Latitude. July 19 Julian, 1321 b.c. 

Alexandria .. 31 12' N 15I1. um. 

Cairo .. .. 30 1' ... .. 15I1. om. 

(Memphis is only 10' South of Cairo.) 

Thebes .. .. 25 41' ... .. 15I1. zm. 

15 



226 APPENDIX A 

years it was a day shorter, and in 1460 a year. Now 
it is the Julian year that contains 365-25 days ; our true 
solar or Gregorian year only contains 365*242+ days. 
It is with the Julian year, therefore, and not the 
Gregorian, that our assumption has equated the Sothic 
year. 

The equation is, up to a point, justified by facts. 
Sinus' s own movements, in relation to those of the Sun 
and Earth, are of such a character that the " Sothic 
year " is longer than the true solar year, and practically 
equivalent to the Julian year. The difference between 
it and the Julian year is not sufficient to vitiate the 
argument, though it may have meant that the cycle, once 
or more, began on a different day in the Julian year. 



APPENDIX B (to p. 117) 

BY PROFESSOR R. S. CONWAY 

The following brief notes were written in answer to a 
specific question which arose in the course of this inquiry 
into the origins of Cretan civilisation. It is well to state, 
therefore, that I have not yet read the book to which they 
are attached. 

Are XaftvpivOos and \avpa, Aavpeiov, connected ? 

This question, raised by Professor Burrows, admits of 
no certain answer at present, the negative being, I think, 
at least as difficult to maintain as the positive. But it is 
possible to say what phonetic and other assumptions the 
connection would imply. I take it as obvious that there 
could not be a better one in point of the meanings. 

(a) I believe XaftvpivOos to be probably a Cretan 
form {i.e. one belonging to some one or other of the 
languages spoken in early Crete) for reasons given in 
22 ff. of my Prehell. Inscc. of Prcesos (B.S.A. viii.). 
It is certain, I think, that the ending -ivOos is Phry go- 
Cretan at least. 

(fi) Eteo-Cretic is certainly an I. Eu. language ; but 
even were it not, a word Hauuro- or Haurro- (or -ra-) 
might easily be taken over from Cretan-Greek into 
either Minoan or Eteo-Cretic at an early period, and serve 
as a base for further formations ; so that we might so get 
lauurintko- in either Minoan or Eteo-Cretic. In this 
latter case, we assume intercourse with Greek speakers 

227 



228 APPENDIX B 

before the date l at which the word \afivpiv6os was first 
used. 

(y) But another possibility, as Professor Burrows re- 
minds me, must not be overlooked. If, as the archaeological 
and epigraphic evidence seems at least to suggest, 
" Minoan " was a language entirely distinct from Eteo- 
Cretic, the kernel of the word, namely \aj3(v)p- (whether 
ft = b or t, i.e. Eng. v), may have been Minoan, and 
taken over from that source into Eteo-Cretic and Greek. 
The origin of Att. \avpa is not likely to have had a ft or 
even a 5, since both would more probably have given 
*\aj3pd. But there is nothing to prevent our supposing 
a Minoan lauur-, if we can account for the change of u 
to j3 in Eteo-Cretic and Cretan Greek. 

Either view, then, implies that at some date before the 
first mention of XafivpLvOos in literature -#- between 
vowels — or between a vowel and an r or r — had become 
"@," i.e. either = Eng. b or Eng. v — in Eteo-Cretic or 
Cretan Greek. This can be supported by two con- 
siderations : 

(i) That in Crete F was a very tough sound, lasted well 
on in Cretan Greek till late in the fourth century B.C. 
or later still, and was denoted by a variety of signs 
(Brugm. Gr. Gram} p. 39) ; cf. also Gust. Meyer, Gr. 
Grant.* (chapter on F). 

(ii) The probability that Eteo-Cr. barxe 2 contains the 
5-aorist stem of Gr. Fepga-. The colloquial meaning of 
Xavpa (Aristoph. Pax, 99, 158) would agree well with the 
suggestion that the word belonged to one of the older 
strata of languages in Attica, dating from times when 
ftaXavela had not yet replaced aaafuvOos (see Preh. Inscc. 
Prces. ad fin.). 

(8) One small point remains : what is the relation of 

1 This would naturally, but not at all necessarily, be the date 
at which the thing was first built. 

2 See Preh. Inscc. of Prcesos, p. 149 (iii. ). 



LABYRINTH, LAURA, LAURIUM 229 

\avpa to a supposed early Minoan or Cretan or Eteo-Cretic 
lauura- ? Either (1) lauura : laura may be an I. Eu. 
doublet like aFetjco : av^co, or (2) lauura- <- laurra may be 
an Eteo-Cretic change, or even — for all one can say — 
a feature of Minoan or some early Greek dialect in 
Crete. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

PERIODICALS 

Abbreviation. Full Title. 

A.G.W.. . Mitteilungen d. Anthropolog. Gesellschaft in Wien. 

Vienna. 
A. J. A. . . American Journal of Archaeology. Baltimore. 
A. P. A. . . Abhandlungen der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie der 

Wissenschaften. Berlin. 
Arch. . . Archaeologia. London. 

Arch. Rel. . Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft. Freiburg i. B. 
A.S.I. . . Annual Reports of Board of Regents of Smithsonian 

Institute. Washington. 
Athenceum . " Athenaeum " newspaper. London. 
Ath. Mitt. Mitteilungen d. Deutsch. Arch. Inst. Athenische 

Abteilung., Athens. 
B.C.H. . . Bulletin de Correspon dance Hellenique. Athens. 
B.S.A. . . The Annual of the British School at Athens (vi. = 1899- 

1900, vii. = 1900-1, etc.) Macmillan, London. 
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C.A.. . . Proceedings of the Classical Association. Murray, 

London. 
Camb. R. . Cambridge Review. Johnson, Cambridge. 
Cornhill. . Cornhill Magazine. London. 
C.R. . . Classical Review. Nutt, London. 
C.R.A.I. . Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles 

Lettres. Paris. 
C. V.S.F. . Christiania Videnskabs-Selskabs Forhandlinger. J. Dyb- 

wad, Christiania. 
D.A.W. . Denkschriften Akademie Wien. Phil. -Hist. Klasse. 

Vienna. 
E0. 'Apx-- 'Fjipfi/u-epis 'ApxcuoXoyiKri. Athens. 
G.B.A. . . Gazette des Beaux Arts. Paris. 
H. . . . Hermes. Berlin. 

J.A.I. . . Journal of the Anthropological Institute. London. 
J.B.A. . . Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. 

London. 
J. D.A.I. . Jahrbuch d. Kais. Deutch. Arch. Inst. Berlin. 
J.H.S. . . The Journal of Hellenic Studies, (xiv. = 1894, xxiv. = 

1904, etc.). Macmillan, London. 
J.O.A.I.W. Jahreshefte d. Ost. Arch. Inst, in Wien. Vienna. 
Man . . Man, a monthly Record of Anthropological Science, 

published by Anthrop. Inst. London. 
M.I.L. . . Memorie del R. Instituto Lombardo di Scienze e 

Lettere. Milan. 
Mon. Ant. . Monumenti Antichi. Accademia dei Lincei. Rome. 

231 



232 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Abbreviation. _ Full Title. 

M.R. . . Monthly Review. Murray, London. 

O.L.Z. . . Orientalische Litteratur Zeitung. Berlin. 

P.S.A. . . Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries. London. 

Q.R. . . . Quarterly Review. London. 

R.E. Anth. Revue de l'Ecole d' Anthropologic Paris. 

R.E.G. . . Revue des Etudes Grecques. Paris. 

Rev. Arch. . Revue Archeologique. Paris. 

Rhein. Mus. Rheinisches Museum. Frankfort. * 

Rend. . . Rendiconti della Accademia dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze 

Morale, Storiche e Filologiche. Rome. 
S.A.E. . . Annales du Service des Antiquites de l'Egypte. Cairo. 
Sat. Rev. . " Saturday Review " newspaper. London. 
Scotsman. . " Scotsman " newspaper. Edinburgh. 
S.G.W. . . Abhandlungen der Phil. -Hist. Klasse d. K. Sachsischen 

Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. Leipzig. 
S.P. . . . " Science Progress " magazine. London. 
T.D.A.P. . Transactions, Department of Archaeology, University of 

Pennsylvania. 
Times . . " Times," newspaper. London. 
T.S.B.A. . Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. 

London. 
Y.W.C.S. . The Year's Work in Classical Studies, Edited for the J 

Council of the Classical Association by W. H. D. Rouse. 

First Year 1907. Murray, London. 
Z. 2Eg. S. . Zeitschrift fur ^Egyptische Sprache und Alterthums- 

kunde. Berlin. 
Z. f. Ethnol. Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie. Berlin. 



Abbreviation. 



SEPARATE PUBLICATIONS 



Full Title. 



A. A. 



Ardaillon, Laurium. 

Berard, P.O. . . . 

Breasted, A.R. . . 

Breasted, Hist. . . 

Browne, H.S. . . 

Bury, L.R.E. . . . 

Cauer, G.H. . . . 
C. and B. . . . 

Chadwick, O.E.N. . 
Chantre, M.C. . 



Authority and Archaeology, Sacred and Profane, 

Edited by D. G. Hogarth. 1899. Murray, 

London. 
Les Mines de Laurium, by E. Ardaillon. 1897. 

Paris. 
Les Pheniciens et l'Odyssee, by V. Berard. 2 vols. 

1902-3. Paris. 
Ancient Records of Egypt, by J. H. Breasted. 

2 vols. 1906. Chicago. 
History of Egypt, by J. H. Breasted. 1906. 

Hodder & Stoughton, London. 
Homeric Study, by H. Browne, S.J. 1905. 

Longmans, London. 
History of the Later Roman Empire, by J. B. 

Bury. 2 vols. 1899. Macmillan, London. 
Grundfragen der Homerkritik, by P. Cauer. 

1895. Leipzig. 
Sammlung d. Griechischen Dialekt. Inschriften, 

by H. Collitz and F. Bechtel. Gottingen. 
Origin of the English Nation, by H. M. Chad- 
wick. 1907. Cambridge University Press. 
Mission en Cappadoce, by C. Chantre. 1898. 

Paris. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



233 



Abbreviation. 

Cor. Num.. . . 



I C.R.A.C. . . 
v Dennis . . 

Dorpfeld, T.I. 

*<- Drerup, Homer 
Dussaud, Q.M. 

Evans, E.C. . 



/ Evans, M.T.P. 



Evans, P.T. . . . 

Farnell, C.G.S. . . 

Farnell,. E.R. . . . 

Fick, H.O.U.S. . . 
r 

Fick, V.O. . . . 
Frazer 

Furtwangler, JEgina. 

Furtwangler, A.G. . 
Gardner, N.C. . . 
Gutscher, I.D.I.G. . 

Hall, O.C.G. . . . 
Harrison, P.S.G.R. . 

Y Harrison, R.A.G. 
Hastings, H.D.B. . 



Helbig, H.E. . 
Helbig, Q.M. . 



Full Title. 

Corolla Numismatica. In honour of Barclay 
V. Head. 1906. Oxford. 

Comptes Rendus du Congres International 
d'Archeologie. 1905. Athens. 

The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, by G. 
Dennis. 2 vols. 3rd ed. 1883. Murray, 
London. 

Troja und Ilion, by W. Dorpfeld. 2 vols. 1902. 
Athens. 

Homer, by Engelbert Drerup. 1903. Munich. 

Questions Myceniennes, by R. Dussaud. (Re- 
printed from Revue de VHistoire des Religions.) 

1905. Paris. 

Essai de Classification des Epoques de la 
Civilisation Minorenne. Resume d'un dis- 
cours fait au Congres d'Archeologie a 
Athens par A. J. Evans. 1906. Cjuaritch, 
London. 

Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, by A. J. Evans. 
(Reprinted from J.H.S. xxi.) 1901. Cjuar- 
itch, London. 

Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos, by A. J. Evans. 

1906. Quaritch, London. 

Cults of the Greek States, by L. R. Farnell. Vols. 

i. and ii. 1896, iii. and iv. 1907. Oxford. 
The Evolution of Religion, by L. R. Farnell. 

1905. London. 
Die Homerische Odyssee in der Ursprunglichen 

Sprachform, by A. Fick. 1883. Gottingen. 
Vorgriechische Ortsnamen, by A. Fick. 1905. 

Gottingen. 
Pausanias's Description of Greece, by J. G. 

Frazer. 6 vols. 1898. Macmillan, London. 
iEgina, das Heiligtum. d. Aphaia, by Furt- 
wangler and Thiersch. 2 vols. 1906. 

Munich. 
Antike Gemmen, by A. Furtwangler. 1900. 

Berlin. 
New Chapters in Greek History, by Percy 

Gardner. 1892. Murray, London. 
Vor und fruhgeschichtliche Beziehungen Istriens 

und Dalmatiens zu Italien und Griechenland, 

by H. Gutscher. 1904. Graz. 
Oldest Civilisation of Greece, by H. R. Hall. 

1 90 1. Nutt, London. 
Prolegomena to the Study of Greek '.Religion, by 

Jane E. Harrison. 1903. Cambridge Uni- 
versity Press. 
The Religion of Ancient Greece, by Jane E. 

Harrison. 1905. Constable, London. 
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, Edited by 

James Hastings. 4 vols, and extra vol. (1904). 

T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. 
Das Homerische Epos, by W. Helbig. 1887. 

Leipzig. 
La Question Mycenienne (Memoires de l'Acad. 

dTnscriptions, xxxv.), by W. Helbig. 1896. 



234 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



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Hoernes, N.K.O. . Die neolithische Keramik in Osterreich (Jahr- 

buch der K.K. Zentral-Kommission fur 

Kunst und Historische Denkmale. III. i. 

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Jacoby, M.P. . . Marmor Parium, by F. Jacoby. 1904. Berlin. 
Kiepert, Creta . . Spezialkarte von Creta, by H. Kiepert. 1897. 

Berlin. 
Kir chhoff, H.O. . . Die Homerische Odyssee, by A. Kirchhoff. 1879. 

Berlin. 
V Kretschmer, E.G.S. . Einleitung in die Geschichte der Griechischen 

Sprache, by P. Kretschmer. 1 896. Gottingen. 
Kropp, M.M.K. . . Die Minoisch-Mykenische-Kultur, by P. Kropp. 

1905. Leipzig. 
Lang, H.A. . . . Homer and his Age, by Andrew Lang. 1906. 

Longmans, London. 
l) Jh Van Leeuwen, H.O.C. Homeri Odysseae Carmina, Edited by J. van 

Leeuwen and M. Mendes da Costa. 1897. 

Lugd. Bat. 
Macdonald, C.T. . Coin Types, by G. Macdonald. 1905. Macle- 

hose, Glasgow. 
\S Meisterhans, G.A.I. . Grammatik der Attischen Inschriften, by K. 

Meisterhans. 1888. Berlin. 
Meyer, S.S.B. . . Sumerier und Semiten in Babylonien, by E. 

Meyer. 1906. Berlin. 
M.N Melanges Nicole, in honour of Jules Nicole. 

1905. Geneva. 
Montelius, C.P.I. . La Civilisation primitive en Italie, by O. Monte- 

lius. 1895, e tc Stockholm. 
* Much, H.I.G. . . . Die Heimat der Indo-Germanen, by M. Much. 

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,, Murray, Ex. Cyp. . Excavations in Cyprus, by A. S. Murray. 1900. 

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Murray, Handbook . Handbook of Greek Archaeology, by A. S. 

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Naue, V.S. . . . Die Vorromischen Schwerter, by J. Naue. 1903. 

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Naville, Hat. . . . Tomb of Hatshopsitu, by E. Naville. 1906. 

Constable, London. 
y Newberry, Rek, . . Life of Rekhmara, by P. Newberry. 1900. 

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Oppolzer, S.S.A. . Ueber die Sothisperiode und das Siriusjahr der 

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Pauly-Wissowa . . Pauly's Real Encyclopadie der Class. Altertums- 

wissenschaft, etc., Edited by G. Wissowa. 

1 894. Stuttgart. 



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235 



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and C. Chipiez. vols, i.-vii. 1882-99. Paris. 
^'Petrie, Hist. . . . History of Egypt, by W. F. Petrie. 3 vols. 

1903-5. Methuen, London. 
^Petrie, K.G.H. . . Kahum, Gurob, and Hawara, by W. F. Petrie. 

1890. Kegan Paul & Co., London. 
••"Petrie, M.A.A. . . Method and Aims in Archaeology, by W. F. 

Petrie. 1904. Macmillan, London. 
Petrie, Migrations . Reprinted from The Journal of the Anthropologi- 
cs cal Institute, vol. xxxvi. 1906. London. 
Petrie, Sinai . . . Researches in Sinai, by W. F. Petrie. 1906. 

Murray, London. 
¥ Petrie, T.A. . . . Tell-el-Amarna, by W. F. Petrie. 1894. 

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%/ Phylakopi .... Excavations at Phylakopi in Melos, Conducted 

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Poulsen, Dip. . . . Die Dipylongraber und die Dipylonvasen, by 

F. Poulsen. 1905. Leipzig. 
V* Ramsay, E.P.R.E. . Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern 

Provinces of the Roman Empire. Edited by 
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\r Ratzel, H.M. . . The History of Mankind, by F. Ratzel. 3 

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Rhys, W.P. . . . The Welsh People, by J. Rhys and D. Brynmor 

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Sayce, A.C.I. . . Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions, by 

A. H. Sayce. 1907. S.P.C.K., London. 
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Translated by E. Sellers. 1891. Macmillan, 
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H. F. Tozer. 1869. Murray, London. 
Tsountas and Manatt, M.A. The Mycenaean Age, by C. T. Tsountas 

and J. A. Manatt. 1897. Boston. 
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Wallis, A.A.E. . . The Art of Ancient Egypt, by Henry Wallis. 

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236 

Abbreviation. 
Wallis, E.C.A. 1898 

Wallis, E.C.A. 1900 
Walters, A.G. . 
I Winckler, A.O. . 

/ Winckler, A.V.G. 
Winckler, W.A.O. 
Wosinsky, I.K. . 
Wosinsky, Lengyel 
Zannoni, S.C.B. . 



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Egyptian Ceramic Art (the Macgregor Col- 
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Egyptian Ceramic Art, by H. Wallis. 1900. 

Taylor & Francis, London. 
The Art of the Greeks, by H. B. Walters. 1906. 

Methuen, London. 
Der Alte Orient, vii. 2. Die. Euphxatlander^ und 
das Mittelmeer, by Hugo Winckler. 1905. 
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Auszug aus der Vorderasiatischen Geschichte, 

by Hugo Winckler. 1905. Leipzig. 
Die Weltanschauung des Alten Orients, by Hugo 

Winckler. 1904. Leipzig. 
Die Inkrustierte Keramik der Stein und 
Bronzezeit, by M. Wosinsky. 1904. Berlin. 
Das Prahistorische Schanzwerk von Lengyel, by 

M. Wosinsky. 3 vols. 1888-91. Budapest. 
Scavi della Certosa di Bologna, by A. Zannoni. 
1876. Bologna. 




100 

_l 



200 FEET. , 

i 



50 



70 



90 METRIC 



PLAN OF THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS 



i. Central Court. 

2. West Court. 

3. West Portico. 

4. South Propyleea. 

5. Corridor of the Cupbearer. 

6. Corridor of the Proces- 

7. Long Gallery with West- 

ern Magazines opening 
out of it on west. 

8. Throne Room. 

9. Ante-room to Throne 

Room. 
10. West and East Pillar 
Rooms 
Temple Repositories. 
Snake Goddess Shrine. 
Room of the Column Bases. 
Court of the Altar. 
Northern Entrance. 
-Guard House. 
Northern Portico. 
Northern Bath. 
Walled Pit under Bllgel- 

kanne Room. 
Room of FlowerGatherer. 
North-east Magazines. 
North-east Hall. 
Corridor of the Draught- 
board. 
Room of the Olive Press. 
Sculptor's Workshop (on 

upper story). 
Corridor of the Bays. 
Great Staircase. 
Stairs to Upper Corridor. 
Lower Corridor, with 
Upper Corridor above 
it. 
Hall of the Colonnades. 
. Hall of the Double Axes. 
Queen's Megaron. 
Drain. 
Lavatory. 

Light-wells of G, H, J. 
. Court of the Distaffs. 
, Room of the Plaster 
Couch, with Room of 
the Stone Bench above 
it on upper story. 
. South Tank. 
. Shrine of Dove Goddess 

and Double Axes. 
. Court of the Sanctuary. 
. South-east Court. 
. Basement of the Mono- 
lithic Pillars. 
, South-east House with 

Pillar Room. 
, North-west Building with 
Bronze Vessels. 



PLATE IV 




50 



90 METRES 



I N DEX 



Achaeans, 41-2, 123/ 197-201, 

203-5 
Achilles. See Shield 
Adriatic, 33-5, 125, 157 
iEgean, term, 42 
Mge&n tribes and Egypt, 3, 93-6, 

123-4, 161, 202, 204 
Agamemnon, 160-1, 205 
Aladdin's jars, 3 
Alkinoos, 206-9, 2I 7 _ 9 
Allen, T. W., 210, 214, 218 
Anthropometry, 164-7, 170-1 
Arch, 30, 105 
Argolid, connections with Crete, 

42, 103, 149-50, 161-2, 178-83, 

201, and Doric, 205 
Assarlik, 102, 143 
Astronomy, Babylonian, 127, 133, 

139 ; Berlin, 67-70, 221-6 
-azi, termination in, 123 

Babylonia, drainage in, 9, 30, 1 39 ; 

influence of, 133-4, l 39> I 4° 
Bacchylides, 162 
Basements, 56-7, 169 
Basilica, 10, 85 
Bath rooms, 59, 81, 104, 106 
Beards, 182 
Beddoe, 145, 165 
Bissing, F. W. von, 68, 74-7, 142 
Bosanquet, R. C, 5, 7, 25, 136, 

151-2, 181 
Boxing, 6, 34-5, 172-4, 208 
Boyd, H. A., 26, 43 
Breasted, A. H., 68, 72-$, 223 
Bricks, use of, 7-8, 27 
Bronze vessels, 18, 90 
Budge, 94-5 

Bull in Cult, 31, 37, 113, 127-8 
Bullring, 21-2, 128-30 



Bull trapping, 33-4, 88, 136-7, 

174, 
Burial interments, 29, 100-2, 189, 
209-13 

Cadmus, 141-2 
Candia, Museum of, 19, 22 
Caria, 42, 102, 140-3, 197, 201, 203 
Central Court : Knossos, 4, 78, 81 ; 
• Pha-stos, 28, 78, 81 
Central Europe, Neolithic Age, 47, 

149, 184-96 
Central Hearth, 161, 178, 181, 

199-200 
Chieftain Vase, 38-9, 174, 177 
Chronology. See Egyptian, and 

Early, Middle, and Late Minoan 
Classical art in Crete, 103-6 
Clay tablets, 4, 15-6, 18, 149-50, 

177 
Clusium : Boxers, 35, 125 ; Laby- 
rinth, 109, 124-6, 131 
Coinage, 15-7, 94, 118-9 
Colour of race, 141, 146, 165 
Conical cap, 182 
Continuity of Minoan art, 48, 81-3 
Conventionalism, 54, 60-1, 86-7, 

90-2 
Conway, R. S., 11 7-21, 15 1-8, 198, 

227-9 
Cook, A. B., 126 
Copes, 36-7, 113, 207 
Corcyra, 13, 208 
Corinth, 119, 198 
Cremation, 100-2, 189, 209-13 
Cross, 115, 158 
Cuirasses, 37, 207 
Cupbearer. See Frescoes 
Cyclades, 42, 50, 167 
Cyprus, 102, 113, 115, 150 



237 



2 3 8 



INDEX 



Daggers, 49, 84, 87-8, 176 
Danaans, 123, 202, 204 
Dancing, 6, 22, 105 
Dark on light designs, 47-8, 53, 

84-6, 99, 188 
Dawkins, R. It, 22, 56, 85, 98, 

151. Lv 

Dicte, Cave of Zeus, 24-5, 116 

Dimini. See Yolo 

Diorite bowl, 44-6 ; statue, 6~, 

7: 
Dorians, 43, 160, 204-5 
Dorpfeld, 41-2, 55, 78-81, 197- 

201, 210-2 
Double axe: in cult, 25, 37, 

112-4, 116, 15S ; mason's 

mark, no— 2 
Dove Goddess, 113, 115, 134, 13S, 

158 
Drainage : at Knossos, 9, 104 ; in 

Mesopotamia, 9, 30, 139 
Draughtboard. 20, 84 
Drerup, 139, 208 
Dress, Minoan, 32, 36-8, 125, 137, 

177, 182-3 
Duck Vases, 54, 89 
Duckworth, 166, 173 
Dussaud, R., 14, in 

Early Minoan I., 44-9, 56, 190-1 

II., 49-50 

III., 50-3, 56-S, 75, 191, 193 

Edgar, C. C., 49, 89 

Egvptian art, 73-7, 96, 173 ; 
chronology, 15, 44-6, 50, 66-76, 
159-60, 221-6; influence, 45, 
50, 76-7, 148, 178, 181 ; Laby- 
rinth, 108-10, 12 1-4 

Eteo-Cretan language, 15 1-8, 
163, 227-9 

Etruria, 109, 119, 123-6, 202, 204 

Etruscan art, 35, 125 

Evans, A. J. : claimed for Sinai 
dating, 7J ; method of, 105-6 ; 
Minoan system of, 41-4 ; mis- 
representation of, in C.R.A.C, 
80 ; on Cupbearer, 2 ; on 
Double Axe, iio-i, 119 ; on 
Labyrinth, 130 ; on Minoan 
Script, 147-51 ; personality of ; 
1-2, 22-3. See also under Early, 
Middle, and Late Minoan, 
Egyptian Chronology and passim 

False-necked vases, 88-90, 10 1 
Farnell, L. R., n, 116, 127, 129, 

202 
Fick, n, 117, 127, 141-2, 155, 218 



Flower -pots, 85 

Forster, E. S., 105 

Fortifications, absence of : at Knos- 
sos. n, 17 ; at Phsstos, 28 

Frazer, 10, 169 

Frescoes: Egyptian, Cat, 31, 93 ; 
Rekhmara and Senmut, 3, 15-6, 
93-5 ; Strainer, 91 

— Hagia Triada, Cat, 31, 93 

— Knossos, Bull Ring, 21-2, 130 ; 
Crocus Gatherer, 3, 62 ; Cup- 
bearer, 2, 39, 86, 92, 167 ; Girl, 
19, 130 ; King with Peacock 
Plumes. 19, 86, 92 ; Labyrinth. 
130 ; Marine, 14, 20, 92 ; Palace 
Sports, 3, 86; Shrine, 28, 113 ; 
Tribute Bearer, 3 

— Mycenae, Sea Monster, 14 

— Phaestos, Flower, 28 

— Phylakopi, Flying Fish, 20, 179 

— Tiryn?, Bull Ring, 179 

— Trov, absence of, 200 
Fyfe, is, 86 

Gardner, P., 136 

Geometric Age, 48, 100-1 

Gha, 1S0-1 

Golden Lamb, 133 

Goldsmiths ' work, 32-3 

Gortyna, ioS, no, 138-9, 205 

Goths, 172 

Gournia. 26-7, 106, in, 113, 138, 

152 
Greek language, coming of, 145 
Greeks and Minoans, 144—6, 152-4, 

160-2, 165, 197-204 
Gypsum, use of, j-8, 81, 122 

Hagia Triada : Tholos, 29, 49, 168, 
212 ; Villa, 31-9, 84, 113, 12S, 
147-S ; destruction of, 100 

Hagios Onuphrios, 24, 52, 75-6 

Hair, cut of, 3, 21. 31-2, 36, 38, 
94, 182-3 

Halbherr, F., 9, 27-39, 138, 212 

Hall, H. R., 15, 93-4, 104, 122-4. 
14S, 153, 155. 1S2, 198, 202-3 

Harrison, J. E., 115, 135, 139 

Harvester Vase, 35-S, 173 

Height, 173-5 

Helbig, 142, 179 

Heraeum, 103, 115 

Herodotus, 141, 153-4, 202 

Hittite, 139, 155 

Hockergraber, 212 

Hoernes, 52, 184-96 

Hogarth, 8, 24, 26, 8?, 90, 113, 
115, 127-8, 136, 172, 19S 



INDEX 



239 



Homeric poems, connection with 
Crete, 6, 14, 20, 43, 137, 151, 
160, 181, 203-19 

Homeric problem, 206-19 

Homeric talent, 16 

Hopkinson, J. H., 15 1-2 

Horns of Consecration, 27, 113, 

159 

Houses : Homeric, 206 ; Minoan, 5, 
20, 29-30, 56-7, 81-2, 168-9, 
178, 1 80-1 ; South Russian 
Neolithic, 189, 193. See also 
Volo 

Hungary, Neolithic Age, 185, 19 1-4 

Hyksos kings, 67-73 

Illyria. See Adriatic 

Incised pottery, 47, 49, 52, 187 

Indo-Europeans, 145-6, 150-8, 

169-71, 191-202 
Ink, writing in, 64-5, 82, 149 
Iron Age, 100-2, 209, 214-7 
Isopata, Tomb at, 29, 46, 65, 86, 

in, 211-2 
Italo-Illyrian art, 33-5, 125-6 
Ivory, 21 

Jones, Morris, 194, cp. 145 
Jortan, 185, 187, 193 

Kahun, 66, 68-70, 224-5 

Kairatos, 6 

Kamares pottery, 24, 48, 54, 58, 

59-61, 66, 75-7, 152, 166, 178, 

192 
Kavusi, 24, 1 01 
Keftians, 93-4, 142, 161 
Khyan, 67, 75 
King, L. W., 140 
Knobbed jars, 63 
Knossos, site of, 6, 18, 22. See also 

Palace, Sack, etc. 
Korte, A., 137, 171 
Koumasa, 29, 166 
Krall, 124 

Kretschmer, 116-25, 146, 154-7 
Kropp, 125, 203 
Kuanos, 20 

Labraunda, 116-7 

Labrys. See Double Axe 

Labyrinth, 107-32, 156, 227-9 

Lang, A., 88, 206, 209, 213-5 

Larnakes, 99, 167 

Late Minoan I., 84-5, 167, 177, 

20 r, 209 
II., 54, 85-97, 167, 177, 

201-3, 209 



Late Minoan III., 98-102, 125, 143, 

149, 157-60, 166, 198, 202, 209 
Laura, 117-8, 227-9 
Laurium, 11 7-9, 227-9 
Lemnos, Labyrinth, 109, 121, 131 
Leuke, 25-6 
Light on dark designs, 47-8, 62-3, 

84-6 
Light- wells, 79-81 
Linear script, 4, 18, 64-5, 82, 84, 

92, 112, 147-50, 158 
Loin-cloth, 36-8, 94, 177, 182-3 
Lycians and Minoans, 123, 14 1-3, 

155, 201-2 

Mackenzie, D., 14, 22, 45, 48, 58-9, 

62, 65, 78-82, 158, 161-2, 180, 

203-4 
Manetho, 72 
Marble, 90-1 

Marine designs, 14, 20, 84, 99 
Marshall, J.' H., 87 
Masonry, types of, 7, 8, 10, 28, 

56-8, 81, 104-6, 122, 182-3 
Masons' marks, 111-2, 150 
Maspero, 124 
Mediterranean race, 146-9, 170, 

187, 194-8 
Megaron : Cretan type, 180-1 ; 

Mainland type, 79-80, 180-1, 

199-201 ; supposed at Phaestos, 

78-80 
Meister, R., 153, 160, 205 
Melos. See Phylakopi 
Meyer, E., 46, 67-8, 170-1, 182, 

222-3 
Middle Minoan L, 53-4, 57-8, 

169, 191, 193, 199 
II., 58-61, 66-83, 166, 173, 

178, 192. See Kamares. 

III., 54, 61-5, 66-83, 123 

Milatos, 24, 101 

Miletus, 143 

Minoa as place name, 11-3, 43, 

129, 208 
Minoan empire, 13-7, 129, 162, 202 
Minoan language. See under Picto- 

graphs, Linear Script, Eteo- 

Cretan 
Minoan, term, 41-4 
Minos, n, 25, 43, 126-7, 204 
Minotaur, 126-30, 139 
Minyac, 1 1, 204 

Monsters, 14, t,j, 126-30, 137, 172 
Muliana, 24, 10 1, 212 
Murray, A. S., 102-3 
— G. G. A., 133, 142, 212, 21 |, 2 1 7 
Mycenae: and Crete, 149-50, 178 83, 



240 



INDEX 



197-202 ; Beehive Tombs, 29- 

30, 87 ; dagger blades, 136, 206 ; 

Empire of, 160-2, 201-2 ; gold 

masks, 36 ; Lions' Gate, 135; 

Megaron, 79-80, 161, 180-1 ; 

remains of script, 149-50, 201 ; 

Shaft Graves, 85, 136, 167, 200, 

211; Silver Cup ,139, 173, 182-3 ; 

stone slabs, 183, 201 ; Warrior 

Vase, 182 
Mycenaean, term, 41-2 
Myres, J. L., 24, 42, 53, 80, 143, 

176, 179, 195 

Naram-Sin, 139-40 

Naturalism, 53-4, 62-4, 84-6, 96, 

188-9 
Nature Goddess, 114-6 
Naue, 176-7 
Naville, E., 94 

Neolithic Age : Far East, 188, 195 
Knossos, 6-7, 44, 47, 55-6, 

189 

Palaikastro, 56, 168 

Phaestos, 29 

Praesos, 152, 168 

South Russia and Central 

Europe, 184-96 
Newberry, 95 
Nippur, 9, 30, 104 
Noack, F., 126, 180-1 
-nth, termination in, 1 19-21, 

154-8, 198 

Orsi, 13, 42, 211 

Palace of Knossos, building of, 
55-9, 61-2, 78-82 ; Plan of, 4-5. 
See also under Frescoes, Early, 
Middle, and Late Minoan 

Palace, Little, 4, 148, 158 

Palaikastro: city, 27, 106, 152; 
Double Axe, 113, 114; houses, 
Minoan, 5, 181 ; Neolithic, 56, 
168 ; ossuaries, 166, 173 ; pottery, 
49, 85, 89 ; Snake Goddess, 

138 
Paribeni, 31-8 

Pelasgians, 40, 109, 197, 202-4 
Petreny, 54, 185-95 
Petrie, 44, 67-77, 94, 123-4, 164-5, 

170-3, 202, 223 
Petsofa figurines, 27, 53 
Pfuhl, E., 169 
Phaeacians, 208, 217 
Phaestos, destruction of, 100 ; 

Palace of, 28, 58-9, 78-82, 106, 

in, 147, 207 ; site of, 27-8 



Philistines, connections with Crete, 
12, 141 

Phoenicians, 134, 140-4, 204 

Phrygia, 156, 201 

Phylakopi, connections with Crete, 
14, 20, 50, 54, 63, 85, 89, 149, 
161, 179 ; with Central Europe, 

191, 195 

Pictographs, 50, 53, 64, 66, 75-6, 
82, 112, 141, 147 

Pile dwellings, 169-70 

Pillar rooms, 56-7, 110-1, 158 

Pillar worship, 25, 112-3, 134-5 

Pit caves, 167-8 

Plaster-work, bull's head, 19, 
85-6, 92 

Polychromy, 48, 188. See also 
Kamares. 

Porcelain, 20-1, 64, 76-7, 207 

Pottery. See under Early, Middle, 
Late Minoan, Dark on Light, 
False-necked, Incised, Kamares, 
Light on Dark, Neolithic, 
Polychrome', Strainers, etc. 

Poulsen, F., 183, 212-3 

Praesos, 105, 138, 151-8, 163, 168, 
227-9 

Prinia, 138 

Ramsay, W. M., 113-5, 135 
Reinach, S., 138, 162 
Reinterment, 29 

Rekhmara, Tomb of, 3, 15-6, 93-5 
Religion, Babylonian, 127 

— Egyptian, 127, 137-8 

— Greek, 114-6, 138, 151, 210-3 

— Minoan, 31-2, t>7, ioi, 112-6, 
127-8, 134-5, 137-8, 151. 210-3 

— Semitic, 1 34-5 
Rhadamanthus, 154, 156, 208-9 
Ridge way, 15, 40, 125, 145-6, 

174-6, 203-4, 214-6 
Riegl, A., 137 

Round hut, 29-30, 168-9, x 8i 
Rouse, W. H., 107-16, 132 
Royal Villa, Knossos, 10, 85, 89, 

104, 178 
Russia, South, Neolithic Age, 54, 

1 84-96 

Sack of Knossos, 18, 95-100, 

129-30, 160-2, 202 
Salamis, 102, 209 
Sarcophagus, Hagia Triada, 31-2, 

113, 128 
Sargon, 1 39-40 
Sarpedon, 143, 202 
Savignoni, 35-7 



INDEX 



241 



Sayce, A. H., 140, 150, 195 

Schliemann, 6, 42, 50 

Schmidt, H., 184-200 

Schnabelkannen, 49 

Sea power of Minos, 11-4, 161-2, 
208 

Seager, R. B., 46, 49 

Seals : Knossos, Boxer, 34 ; natu- 
ralistic, 64 ; sea monster, 14 ; 
Zakro, 26, 113, 127-8 

Semites, 93, 134-5, 141-2, 170 

Senmut, 90. See Rekhmara. 

Sergi, 145, 164, 166 

Serpentine vases, 6 3, 67 

Shakespeare and his sources, 214 

Shield, figure-of-eight, 101, 112, 
182 ; of hide, 38, 207 

Shield of Achilles, 20, 207, 209 

Ships, Minoan, 14 

Sicily, connections with Crete, 
12-3, 42, 115, 208 ; burials in, 
210 

Sitia, 29, 169, 181 

Smith, A. H., 162 

— Cecil, 48 

Snake Goddess, 22, 113, 115, 137-8, 
158 

Sothic cycle, 68-70, 221-6 

Spirals, 51-2, 86, 187-96 

Staircases, 8, 23 

Stamboul, 13 1-2 

State entrance, Phaestos, 28,78-80 

Stephanos, C, 167 

Stern, von, 54, 184-95, 2I1 

Stone carvings, 85-6, 90-1 

Strainers, 84, 91-2 

Strata sections, 56-7, 106 

Sumerians, 170-1, 182 

Survivals: in architecture, 10, 49, 
181 ; in coinage, 16-7; in pottery, 
48 ; in religion, 115, 138, 198 

Swords, bronze and iron, 101-2, 
214-7 ; grip of, 174-5 ; hilts of, 
175-6 ; leaf-shaped, 176-7, 183, 
201 ; rapiers, 84, 87-8, 176 

Talent, Homeric, 16 

Taurokathapsia, 129 

Tell-el- Amarna : letters, 1 34, 202 ; 

palace, 77, 91, 95-7 
Temple repositories, 20-1, 63, 64 
Teucri, 123-4, 204 
Theatral Area, Knossos, 5, 58-9, 

81 ; Phaestos, 28, 58-9, 81 
Theseus, 107, 162 
Thiersch, 138 
Tholoi, 29-30, 168-9 



Thomson, A., 164 
Throne Room, 2, 85, 104-5 
Tiryns, absence of script at, 1 50 ; 
Bull Fresco, 179 ; frieze of 
Kuanos, 20 ; Kamares pottery 
at, 42, 178 ; masonry, 104, 183 ; 
Megaron, 79-80, 161, 180-1 ; 
palace, 197, 201 ; pottery, 182 
Tordos, 149, 185, 196 
Transitional Age, 101-2, 209-17 
Treasure of Priam, 194, 200 
Trickle ornament, 64 
Triglyphs, 28, 86 
Troy; First City, 185, 191-3 

— Second City, 6, 50 ; Central 
Hearth of, 180, 199-201 ; remains 
of script in, 149 ; skulls, 166 ; 
treasure of Priam, 194, 200 

— Sixth City, 6, 183, 199 
Tsountas, 56, 87, 150, 169, 186, 

193, 201 
Turin Papyrus, 46, 71-3 
Tursha, 123-4, 2 ° 2 > 2 °4 
Twelfth Dynasty, date of, 66-77, 

221-6 
Tyi, Queen, 96 
Tyrrhenians. See Etruria 

Upper stories, 7-8, 23, 129-30 

Vaphio ; gold cups, 33, 88, 136-7, 
172-4, 179 ; pottery, 87, 179 

Vasiliki, 24, 49, 57, 181 

Volo, excavations near, 56, 168, 
186, 188, 193, 201 

Waist, narrow, 36, 39, 94, 17 1-3, 

182-3 
Waldstein, 103-6 
Wales, 145, 165, 190, 194 
Wallis, H., 74, 91 
Water-Lily Cup, 61, 6$, 77 
Weights, 15, 91 
West Court, Knossos, 5, 58-9, 

79-81 ; Phaestos, 28, 58-9, 79-81 
Winckler, H., 1 $3, 1 39, 155 
Wooden horse, 133 
Wosinsky, 47, 186-90 ,■ 

Xanthoudides, 29, 10 1, 169, 181 

Zafer Papoura, chafing pans, 
2 1 1-2; site, 6; swords, 87-8, 
I 75~7» 2 °6 » types of grave, 30, 
167-8 ; vases, 88-90, 98-100 

Zakro, 26, 124, 152; seals, 26, 
113, 127-8 ; vases, 26, 84-5, 136 

16 



ADDENDA— May 1907 

Since the foregoing pages have been printed off, Dr. D. Mackenzie has, 
with great kindness and courtesy, sent me the proofs of a valuable 
article on " Cretan Palaces and the iEgean Civilisation," that is about 
to appear in B.S.A. xii. It is gratifying to find that on the funda- 
mental points raised in Chaps. IX. X. and XI. I am in substantial agree- 
ment with him — e.g. in regard to the wide diffusion of the Mediterranean 
Race. His argument that the loin-cloth is a proof of Southern origin 
is convincing, (i) It occurs early in Crete, not only on the male 
M.M. I. Petsofa figures (B.S.A. ix. PL IX., X.), but probably on the 
squatting female figures from Neolithic Knossos (unpublished ; see 
Welch, B.S.A. vi. p. 86). Squatting itself shows Southern origin. 
(2) Knickerbockers (see my p. 37) are an original I.e. made baggy 
and long ; their wearers are naked above the waist, and some of them 
are women. (3) Low dresses and flounced or multiple skirts (see my 
p. 3) represent a development upwards and downwards of an original 
I.e. for women. (4) Traces of the I.e. can be found in modern Sardinia 
and the " subligaculum " of early Italy. (5) Northerners, when they 
did come, i.e. the Greeks, never adopted the I.e. 

It would be ungracious and premature to emphasise points of differ- 
ence. While agreeing that the Mediterranean element was dominant 
among the Minoans, I must put in a plea for their mixed character, 
when we first can test them (see my pp. 165-71). A. Mosso's state- 
ment (Escursioni nel Mediterraneo e gli Scavi di Creta, Milan, 1907, 
p. 275), that "a great majority" of his skulls were dolichocephalic, 
agrees with my conclusions. Sergi's remark (quoted M.I.L. xxi. 5, 
p. 252) is too vague to weigh against the detailed evidence of Duck- 
worth and Hawes. On my p. 166 the M.M. II. Palaikastro skulls 
may be M.M. I. also (see B.S.A. x. pp. 194-5). This strengthens my 
case. 

In regard to the Central Hearth, Dr. Mackenzie argues not only that 
it was due to the climate of Greece itself (see my pp. 181, 197), but 
that the house in which it occurs is a development from a Cretan 
hearthless type. With a fixed hearth you (a) gave up a door at the 
back of your Megaron because the draught would not let your fire 
burn ; and (b) made it deeper in proportion to its breadth, incor- 
porating perhaps the back space that in warmer lands you had used 
as a light-well. Does this novel and clever theory fully account for 
the great differences between Cretan and Mainland houses (see my 

243 



244 ADDENDA 

pp. 1 80-1) ? We must wait for a fuller description of the Neolithic 
houses at Volo (see my p. 56). If there is a common origin, does it 
not at least date further back than the use of light- wells in Crete ? 

As on the whole question of Northern influence in the iEgean I 
occupy a position between Mackenzie and Dorpfeld-Noack (see my 
pp. 149-50, 178-83, 196-202), so in regard to Eteo-Cretan I stand as 
at least a possible halfway-house between Mackenzie and Conway 
(see my pp. 15 1-8, 163). When Ridgeway and Conway discuss the 
ethnology of Patricians and Plebeians at Rome (see full report of 
meeting of British Academy, Athen&um, May 4, 1907), I am as anxious 
that pre-Indo-European elements should not be ignored as I am in 
Mackenzie's case that he should consider the possibility of successive 
Indo-European strata. 

In regard to the Harvester Vase, Mackenzie (a) rejects Savignoni's 
view that the singers are women (see my p. 36) ; (b) sees a pad " to 
obviate friction during sheaf -binding " above the left thigh of all the 
fork-bearers ; (c) believes that the sistrum-player is a Cretan. What, 
however, of the absence of the narrow waist (see my pp. 36, 173) ? 

Dr. Mosso's book, which has also just reached me, is a brightly 
written story of travel, and contains many beautiful illustrations for 
the modest price of ten francs. He has been apparently fortunate 
enough to get a permission, which was refused to me, to publish the 
Chieftain Vase (figs. 33-4, pp. 55-6). Along with Dr. Mackenzie I 
accept his suggestion that the figure in the centre of the Palaikastro 
dance is not, as Dawkins held (cp. my p. 138 with my p. 22), a Snake 
Goddess, but a musician playing a lyre, the frame of which took an 
animal shape, as in that upon the Hagia Triada Sarcophagus (cp. 
fig. 124, p. 225, with fig. 145, p. 260). He announces (p. 251) an 
interesting discovery by Di. Pernier, at Prinia near Gortyna, of an 
archaic Greek stele representing a huge Northerner with a round 
shield and greaves threatening a tiny man in " Mycenaean " cos- 
tume who is in an attitude of supplication. We have here a counter 
to the stele from Mycenae, if my interpretation of it be correct (see my 
pp. 183, 201). We may adapt Dumas, and christen it "Cent Ans 
Apres " ! 

In conclusion, Mr. J. K. Fotheringham writes in J.H.S. xxvii. 
(published May 6, 1907), pp. 75-89, criticising, as a specialist on 
Eusebius, Mr. Myres's article on the Thalassocracies (see my p. 143). 
Myres replies (ibid. pp. 123-30), but admits that he has made arith- 
metical slips in his Chronology. My views as to Caria do not depend 
on his reconstruction of Eusebius, and it will be safer not to use it in 
their support. 



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